FP1 & FP2 - Chinese GP report: Force India Mercedes

It was a straightforward day of practice for Sahara Force India at the Shanghai International Circuit in preparation for Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix.

Nico Hülkenberg

“I’m pretty pleased with today. There’s still work to be done, of course, but we’ve carried out the usual learning with the tyres and tried a few different things on the car. Tyre wear is always high here and we saw that again today, so it’s going to be a big factor in the race. We also saw how close everybody is on the timesheets so it’s going to be a tight grid.”

Sergio Perez

“The track conditions were not the best today because the wind picked up during the sessions and it was hard to be consistent. We also lost some time this morning because of the disruptions with the red flags. I think the main topic of the day is degradation and we have to try and learn how to improve that tonight as well as improving the balance of the car.”

Otmar Szafnauer, Chief Operating Officer

“Our work today involved the usual data gathering with both performance and long runs across the three tyre compounds. We obviously lost some track time this morning with the red flag stoppages caused by our competitors, but we played catch-up in the afternoon and ended the day in good shape. Both Nico and Sergio explored some set-up options to optimise the car around this quite specific track so there’s a lot of information to study to understand the best direction for the rest of the weekend. The forecast for the next couple of days looks uncertain with a high chance of rain tomorrow, but at least we’ve done most of our homework for dry conditions.”