Qualifying - Belgian GP report: Force India Mercedes

A wet qualifying session at Spa-Francorchamps saw Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg qualify in P13 and P18 respectively for tomorrow’s Belgian Grand Prix.

Nico Hulkenberg

“It was a difficult session in tricky conditions. Initially it was looking good; I was on the pace and we chose to stay out on one set of intermediates for the whole session. Maybe that was a factor in missing out on Q2 because my tyres were quite old and worn by the end of the session. Q2 should still have been possible, but I made mistakes on my last two laps and out-braked myself going into the final corner, went wide and lost time. For the race tomorrow I believe we can recover because we’ve got a solid car and the long run pace in the dry yesterday looked promising.”

Sergio Perez

“It was not the easiest day for us. I was struggling in the wet conditions and that was the main issue today. I wanted to be further up but we did not maximise everything. I’m feeling more optimistic for tomorrow and we should have strong race pace. P13 is not a bad place to start the race and I’m sure we can move forward and make up some positions.”

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal

“It was a wet qualifying session and I think we ended up well short of the positions our pace should have warranted. Conditions were very difficult for everyone and we were unlucky to lose Nico so early. Checo did a good job to reach Q2, but as the track became more and more slippery at the end of the session he was unable to improve his time enough to make it into the top ten. We will have a big job on our hands to get both cars in the points tomorrow, but the indications we have seen yesterday show we have a good race pace. The weather can once again play a big role so we will need to be ready to maximise every opportunity we may get.”