Formula 1

Force India Celebrate Double Points Finish in Monaco

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Paul Di Resta finished ahead of Force India team-mate Nico Hulkenberg despite starting four places behind the German - Photo Credit: Sahara Force India F1 Team

Paul Di Resta finished ahead of Force India team-mate Nico Hulkenberg despite starting four places behind the German - Photo Credit: Sahara Force India F1 Team

 

Force India were celebrating ten well-earned points this evening in Monte Carlo after Paul di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg finished the Monaco Grand Prix in seventh and eighth places respectively.

Di Resta drove a particularly impressive race, considering he started down in fourteenth place.

“A great result today and I'm very happy to make up so much ground on my starting position,” said the Scot, summarising his performance. “We went aggressive with the strategy and I have to say the team really optimised it. The secret was managing the tyres and trying to find clean air when we could.

“The car felt really good, much stronger than yesterday, and that allowed me to push when we needed to. Fortunately the rain held off at the end because that could have had a big impact on the end of the race. It's great that we managed to get both cars in the points and we can celebrate tonight.”

Hulkenberg got caught up in the melee at the start of the race, and spent much of his afternoon stuck behind a slow Kimi Raikkonen. However, the German was still pleased with the result.

“It was a pretty messy start with lots of cars touching and I was lucky to make it through because I had to avoid Grosjean, who was in the middle of the track,” said Hulkenberg. “For the first few laps I was running with Michael [Schumacher] and we were stuck behind Kimi who was struggling on the supersofts, but it was difficult to get by. Unfortunately Kimi stopped on the same lap as me so I remained behind him and we came out in a lot of traffic, which is when Paul jumped ahead of me.

“The rest of the race was quite uneventful and I just focused on looking after the tyres. It's a great result for the team and we should be happy with the result.”

Team principal Vijay Mallya, who was attending his first race of 2012 this weekend, was very pleased with how his team performed today.

“A very enjoyable Monaco Grand Prix and I am delighted to see both Sahara Force Indias well inside the points,” said the boss. “Paul drove a very strong race, making up seven places on his grid position and managing the tyres perfectly. Nico was running the reverse strategy to Paul, which also worked out well, and means we leave here with ten important points.

“Now we look forward to the next race in Canada where we hope to continue our run of points finishes.”

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