Sahara Force India F1 Team are now focussing their attention to qualifying, after both drivers failed to improve in Free Practice 2 for the Monaco Grand Prix.
Sergio Perez finished Free Practice 1 in eighth with a time of 1:14.201s, finishing only 0.224 seconds ahead of team-mate Esteban Ocon who completed the top ten. The Silverstone-based outfit tried a slightly different direction in FP2, but this didn’t allow much improvement from either driver. With Perez finishing in seventh, ahead of Lewis Hamilton with a time of 1:13.799s, Ocon finished 1.131 seconds behind in fifteenth.
Ahead of Free Practice 3 and Qualifying on Saturday, the team will be looking at the changes they made on Thursday to understand how to move forward.
“We started FP1 pretty well,” said Deputy Team Principal Robert Fernley. “The drivers were immediately comfortable with the balance of the car.
“We tried a slightly different direction in FP2 and things didn’t really improve, so we will need to look at the changes we made to understand how to move forward for Saturday. Esteban had to get up to speed with a new circuit and he went very close to the limit at times, but that’s part of his learning process around this track.
“We were able to do a lot of mileage with the softer compounds and we also tried some new parts, which seem to be working as expected. Now it’s a matter of extracting some more potential from the car during FP3 and focussing on qualifying performance.”
