Sahara Force India drivers complete a combined total of 109 laps at Silverstone

Sahara Force India’s preparations for its local race saw Nico Hulkenberg, Sergio Perez and Daniel Juncadella complete a combined total of 109 laps during today’s official practice sessions.

Sergio Perez (FP1: 1:37.720, P11, 22 laps / FP2: 1:37.236, P16, 37 laps) : “It was quite a challenging day for us and we are a bit shy of where we would have wanted to be. We struggled with balance in both sessions and this meant we couldn't extract all the pace from the car. We knew this was going to be a hard track for us due to its layout and tonight we will need to review the set-up to find the extra couple of tenths that can get us back in the group where we belong. We have a pretty clear idea of what we need to do overnight and if we can achieve that, we should be looking much better tomorrow.”

Nico Hulkenberg (FP1: Did not take part / FP2: 1:37.449, P17, 27 laps): “Just the one session for me today and it was very windy out on track. That made things more difficult, although we know it’s a common situation here at Silverstone. It was quite a normal session for me, but we need to analyse the situation better tonight to make the right conclusions for tomorrow. It’s the usual challenge of understanding the tyres and improving the balance to put ourselves in a better position.”

Daniel Juncadella (FP1: 1:38.083, P14, 23 laps / FP2: Did not take part): “It was good fun today and a great opportunity to drive my first free practice session on our home track. It’s a track I know well and everything went smoothly with no problems. The main challenge was getting the tyres working, especially because of the harder compounds being used here. The priority today was to give the team some data and feedback to help prepare the car for Nico this afternoon.”

Dr Vijay Mallya, Team Principal & Managing Director: “The preparations for our local race saw a busy programme today with our reserve driver Daniel enjoying his first experience of driving in an official practice session. He acquitted himself very well and collected the data we needed. The windy conditions made it hard to carry out consistent testing today, making the car unstable, but in general we seem to be more comfortable with our high fuel runs compared with the low fuel balance. We still have some ideas to explore tonight and hopefully that will bring us more in line with the teams that were ahead of us on the timesheets today. The good news is that all our homework is done in terms of data collection so I think we are in reasonable shape heading into the weekend.”

Sahara Force India