Sahara Force India picked up six points in todays Japanese Grand Prix as Nico Hulkenberg finished in seventh place with teammate Paul Di Resta coming home in twelfth.
P7 Nico Hulkenberg (VJM05/03)
Tyre strategy: New soft, new hard, new hard
Nico: If you had told me before the race that we would finish seventh, I would have taken it straight awayso Im very happy with todays 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. 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 placea well-deserved result for the team after a tough weekend for the mechanics and six important points for the championship.
P12 Paul Di Resta (VJM05/02)
Tyre strategy: New soft, new hard, new hard
Paul: 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 its difficult to recover. I was always in traffic and without running in clean air I couldnt 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.
Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal
An excellent drive by Nico and very encouraging to see such strong race pace on a track that has never really played to our strengths. We made the right calls on the strategy and for much of the race Nico was up there pushing hard to get ahead of Lewis. Pauls race was seriously compromised by a poor getaway, which we will investigate, and that meant we missed out on getting both cars in the points. In terms of the championship weve edged further ahead of Williams and Sauber remain just about in sight. Id also like to pay special credit to both sides of the garage for their incredible effort this weekend. We kept them very busy and they did an amazing job under difficult conditions. Overall its been a remarkable team effort.
