Paul Di Resta is hoping his Friday afternoon crash won’t come back to haunt him over the rest of the Japanese Grand Prix weekend. The Briton touched the dirt with his right hand wheels on the approach to Spoon curve and slammed into the tyre barrier, a mistake he took full responsibility for.
“The morning session was straightforward and the balance was good straight after lunch with the changes we had made to the car. Unfortunately I made a mistake quite early on and was probably a bit too ambitious. I found myself with my two right side wheels on the grass and lost grip on the loose dirt. It’s a shame it had to happen so early in the session and it creates extra work for the guys tonight. You have to be on the edge to feel what the car is doing and sometimes these things happen, but hopefully it won’t cost us too much for the rest of the weekend.”
Nico Hulkenberg gave the Force India team something to smile about in the afternoon with the fourth fastest time on low fuel and is now aiming to improve the performance in race trim tomorrow morning.
“Quite a smooth Friday for me and nice to have two dry sessions with consistent weather. We went through the programme and did all the things we wanted to with no issues. I’m quite happy with the car on low fuel, but I think we still have some work to do to improve our high fuel performance. We took our usual approach with the tyres and did long runs on the hard and soft compounds, so we have lots of information to help us for the race.”
