Friday: Quite a calm day for Force India
Like its rivals, Force India had little track time for its drivers today - even though Paul di Resta, who was discovering the circuit, managed to complete more laps than Adrian Sutil to find a good rhythm. Both men attempted to fit supersoft tires at the end of the day but were unsuccessful as the track was still too wet. They therefore expect a busy day tomorrow to prepare for qualifying and the race.
Adrian Sutil – 4th and 12th
The track was wet all day so all we could do was drive in the rain with wet and intermediate tires. This afternoon, the rain wasn’t as heavy, but the circuit takes a long time to dry so we kept driving while waiting for the track to improve, but it didn’t happen. Even during the second session, the times were quite similar and the track wasn’t faster. I tried the super softs at the end of the session for one lap, but the track wasn’t ready yet so I came straight back to the pits. The settings we had at the end of the day weren’t very far from what we would have had in the dry because I think we found a good starting point for tomorrow.
Paul di Resta – 3rd and 10th
Today, I discovered this circuit so I had to make the most of these rainy conditions. It wasn’t ideal for me to learn the layout but the team allowed me to do as many laps as possible and I gained confidence little by little. The track was really wet this morning and there was a lot of aquaplaning, especially in turns 7 and 8, where the car moved a lot. The car seemed good with the intermediates this afternoon and there was an apparent line during the last 30 minutes, but the surface was still very greasy. Like a few other cars, we put on the super softs at the end of the day but it was too difficult to keep them at temperature and you couldn’t learn much. The weather should improve tomorrow so we will have a lot of work to do during the last practice session to test the tires planned for the dry and be fast for the qualifying session.
