Force India clearly corrected course in Austria

The rivalry remains as intense as ever between the two Sahara Force India drivers, and the collision in Baku has not been forgotten. Both drivers are therefore even more motivated to finish ahead of the other. Once again, it is Sergio Perez who emerged victorious in this little game, with an 8th place that will be bumped up by one position thanks to Lewis Hamilton’s penalty.

Yet, the Mexican had been clearly struggling since the start of the weekend: I’m very happy with my performance today. I think it’s one of my best qualifying sessions when you consider how difficult it was before this session. I was 17th during FP2 and 18th in the last session this morning. So finishing 8th in qualifying shows the enormous progress we’ve made to improve the car.

He could also be satisfied with having outpaced his teammate by only 69 thousandths of a second. On the contrary, the Frenchman was disappointed, especially since he had saved a set of new tires for his last attempt. But this was ruined by the track stop of his compatriot, Romain Grosjean: “I’m not completely satisfied with ninth place, given everything that happened during the session, but it’s still a good starting position. My fastest lap in Q3 was on used tires, but with the yellow flags, I couldn’t finish my attempt on fresh tires. I think I could have done better, but that’s how it is,” commented the 19-year-old driver.

If it seems difficult to hold back Lewis Hamilton, the Pink Panthers’ drivers know that the Red Bull Ring offers great overtaking opportunities, with its two DRS zones. Their leaders simply hope that their drivers won’t imitate the Mercedes drivers, who collided in the last lap last year…