Force India pulls out all the stops at Spa to take fourth place from Williams

The start was prolific for Nico Hülkenberg who moved from eighth to third place within a few meters due to the incidents between the two Ferraris and Verstappen. « At the start of the race, things really went well for me. The first lap was great. I climbed up to second place behind Nico (Rosberg) and pulled away from the group of cars behind me. »

Distributed on soft tires after the interruption, the German driver held his position for a few laps before Hamilton overtook him to snatch the last step of the provisional podium. « *Unfortunately, the red flag was costly because it neutralizes things and everyone regrouped again.* »

The first pit stop was eventful as Fernando Alonso’s McLaren was released very close to him. Both cars nearly touched at the pit exit, with Hülkenberg avoiding a collision by slightly moving to the left. There ended up being only a slight contact on his rear tire, with no consequences for either driver.

His second stint proved to be rather calm as he remained quite isolated at that point in the race. Stopping a little before Hamilton, the German driver even claimed third place for a few laps, before being overtaken again by the triple world champion. Once again, the podium eludes the driver of car number 27, but he matches his best performances since his debut in F1. « Maybe if things had worked out slightly differently, we could have been on the podium, but I’m satisfied with the fourth position. »

When the lights went out, Pérez lost several positions by avoiding the collision between Vettel, Räikkönen, and Verstappen. *I had to go to the outside because of the first corner collision, I lost many places but managed to fight back.*

He had to work hard to carve out a path in the pack after the race was restarted. The Mexican driver was forced to attack and overtake many cars on the track to make his way up. It was his outside overtake on Massa (Williams) that caught the most attention. “Felipe is a very experienced driver, so you can really push against him. When I saw I had more grip than him on the outside, I went for it.”

After his last stop, the former McLaren driver had to settle for a satisfactory fifth place behind his teammate. When asked what he thinks about his team overtaking Williams in the constructors’ standings, he states: “Moving up to fourth place in the constructors’ championship is a fantastic achievement for us, but we cannot get carried away because there is still a very long way to go in the season.”

The combined results of the two drivers allow Vijay Mallya’s team to take the fourth place in the constructors’ standings, previously occupied by Williams.