Force India hail double points finish

Together with the ‘older’ specification Mercedes engine, Force India were once again in the top ten, with another double points finish for the team.

They were somewhat in a league of their own though, losing rivals Lotus early who they would have had their closest battles with on the circuit, but will still able to have good battles with those coming through the field, most notably Kimi Raikkonen.

Sergio Perez was the highest placed of the two drivers, who had been showing well all weekend, “I had a really enjoyable time today. I had very strong pace from the beginning to the end; I managed the tyre degradation well and I feel we got the maximum that was possible from the race.

“The first stint was fairly calm: I found myself in clean air and I managed to open a gap over the cars behind so I wasn’t under any pressure. After my pit stop, I knew Kimi was closing in behind me: he was really quick and there was nothing I could do to keep him behind any longer than I did.

“I am very pleased with our performance over the whole weekend and the team really deserves these points. Today’s result is important because it moves us back to fifth in the championship with a nice gap over our rivals. We did a good job and we deserve this result.”

Nico Hulkenberg finished just a place behind, and was struggling at times with the team looking at swapping him to a two stop strategy, although ultimately stayed with the one, “Seventh place brings some useful points, but I finished the race feeling a little bit frustrated because we didn’t have the pace we know is possible.

“I actually think we had a problem with the car and it’s something we need to investigate because I was losing downforce, the car was sliding and the rear tyres were heating up too much, all of which really hurt my pace.

“The second half of the race was quite difficult defending against Ericsson and that’s when we were considering changing to a two-stop strategy because I was struggling so much with the tyres. In the end we decided against it and I was able to hang on to seventh place for some important points.”

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