Force India came away from Hockenheim having scored just two points. It was a disappointing day, considering how rivals Sauber finished with both cars in the top six.
Nico Hulkenberg enjoyed a strong day in a wet qualifying session, and started fourth thanks to Mark Webber's grid penalty. In a dry race however, he dropped back and finished in ninth position at his home race. The German was philosophical after the race on the team's chances however.
“We always knew it was going to be tough to hang on to fourth place because we did not look especially strong in the dry conditions on Saturday morning,” he said.
“But when you’re in that position you hope for the best and actually the first part of the race was strong for me and I had some good battles. In terms of strategy, doing three stops was the way forward because a two-stop race was not possible with the way the tyres were degrading. So it’s good to come away with some points but I was certainly hoping for a bit more from my home race.”
Team mate Paul di Resta failed to score points for the second race running as he finished in eleventh place.
“A tough race today and ultimately we didn’t have the pace to match teams like Lotus and Sauber. The story of the race was deciding whether to stop two or three times and with hindsight we probably could have been more aggressive. But it was hard to understand the tyres and we seemed to struggle for pace in the middle of each stint.”
“I think we have the baseline speed in the car but we just couldn’t demonstrate it today and that’s why I missed out on points. Hopefully we can find the sweet spot next weekend before the summer break,” he added.
“Two important points scored today, but we were hoping for more considering our strong starting positions. We split the strategies with Nico stopping three times and Paul doing a two-stop race, and there was little to choose between them in the end. Both drivers battled hard, but it was difficult to defend on such an open track where it is easy to overtake,” Vijay Mallya said.
“With today’s result we have moved within a point of Williams in the championship and hopefully we can continue our points run in Hungary next weekend.”
