Force India drivers still in their learning phase
Nico Hülkenberg and Sergio Perez are not yet fully comfortable in their VJM08, but they expressed satisfaction with their first day of testing in Melbourne thanks to the work done.
The Force India drivers did little running with the VJM08 during private testing, but this did not significantly impact Nico Hülkenberg’s debut on the first day of the Australian Grand Prix testing.
The German driver finished outside the top 10 in FP1 (13th) and did slightly better in FP2, setting the 10th fastest time. Hülkenberg is quite satisfied even though he still needs to work on extracting more performance from his car: It was a pretty normal Friday with trouble-free running. The long performance stint was quite good, especially in terms of the feel and confidence I have with the car. So the balance is good; we just need to find more performance, particularly over one lap.
Sergio Perez, on his side, finished outside the top 10 in both sessions (12th each time), and even though he worked a lot, he is not yet fully comfortable with his new single-seater: « It was a day where we were able to achieve our goals and target in terms of mileage covered – so that’s positive. We worked a lot with both the soft and medium tires, and I think we have a good understanding of their performance. In terms of feeling with the car, there are things to improve, but it’s the first day of the season and the first time I’ve had the chance to do real performance work. »
Otmar Szafnauer, the operations manager, is also satisfied with this first day due to the reliability of the Silverstone team’s cars and the work done: « Both cars ran reliably today, and we were able to make progress on our to-do list. We did some aero work this morning, making comparisons between the two cars, which proved useful as we continue to learn from the VJM08. The drivers were happy with the overall balance, and we made some progress during the day. »
