Force India was able to pick up some more points courtesy of Nico Hulkenberg. The German, who had showed strong form in the Friday practice sessions, rebounded from a crash on Saturday morning to finish in seventh place. Paul di Resta was twelfth.
“If you had told me before the race that we would finish seventh, I would have taken it straight away – so I’m very happy with today’s result. I made a great start, moving ahead of several cars and was able to keep out of the trouble in turn one. By the end of lap one I was already in eighth and as it turned out we had good pace. The car felt strong throughout the race: there was a nice balance and I was able to chase Lewis and Kimi hard and put pressure on them,” the German explained. He also paid tribute to his mechanics.
“They edged away towards the end and for the closing laps I just had to make sure I kept ahead of Maldonado. So another seventh place – a well-deserved result for the team after a tough weekend for the mechanics and six important points for the championship.”
Di Resta meanwhile suffered another challenging race, and endured a frustrating run to finish outside of the points. His clutch failed on the warm up lap resulting in a sluggish start away from the grid at the proper start.
“Quite a testing race for me. Things started to go wrong on the parade lap when I had a clutch issue, so it was not a big surprise when I made a poor getaway off the line. Going into turn one I was almost at the back of the field so I was able to stay out of trouble and avoid the accidents ahead of me. “
“But when you lose so much ground at the start it’s difficult to recover. I was always in traffic and without running in clean air I couldn’t really show the potential of the car. We were not too far away with the set-up, but I never really found the sweet spot during the race. Hopefully I can go to Korea and get back in the points.”
