Nico Hulkenberg has praised the work his Sahara Force India team have done this weekend after finding their weekend compromised by the practice crash suffered by team-mate Sergio Perez, despite finding himself missing out on qualifying inside the top ten, albeit by only 0.021s.
The German will start eleventh at the Hungaroring on Sunday as a result of a late quick lap by Romain Grosjean displacing him out of the top ten shootout, but also rued the red flag caused by Fernando Alonso stopping his McLaren-Honda on track whilst Hulkenberg was on a quick lap.
“It’s been quite a difficult weekend for the team, but I have to give credit to the way they have handled the situation and fixed it,” said Hulkenberg.
“The main penalty of yesterday was losing the track time and maybe with more set-up time we would have been able to make it through to Q3 today.
“The other key factor in the qualifying session was the red flag, which caught me out because I was on my first quick lap and had to abort it. So I only had one lap to get the job done and I just missed out by two hundredths of a second.
“Despite the limited track time, I feel quite happy and confident in the car, and I think we can perform well tomorrow. Points are still an achievable target.”
