Sahara Force India completed busy practice sessions this afternoon at Albert Park ahead of Sunday’s season-opening Australian Grand Prix.
Nico Hulkenberg
“I’m feeling quite happy because it was a smooth day with lots to learn. I had a little moment at the end of FP2 when I put a wheel on the grass under braking, but the conditions were difficult because the sun was so low in the sky. Otherwise the day went well in terms of reliability and we look quite competitive so far. It feels like both tyre compounds are working well, but there is still room for improvement with the balance, which is where we will concentrate this evening.”
Sergio Perez
“It’s been a successful day in terms of the work we’ve done and I think we can feel confident about the rest of the weekend. There are some areas where we need to improve, but the most important thing is that we managed to collect some good information. I’m happy with the general balance of the car so we have moved in the right direction with the set-up. My long run was not ideal because of the traffic, but we have enough information to make our decisions.”
Vijay Mallya, Team Principal and Managing Director
“The first two sessions of the 2014 season have gone pretty much to plan for us. Both cars have run reliably throughout the day and allowed us to complete a lot of the set-up work and test items on the job list. Our tyre evaluation also went well and we have plenty of long-run data with both cars running slightly different programmes to give us as much information as possible on how to approach the race. There will be a busy night of analysis ahead before we focus on qualifying pace in final practice tomorrow.”