Race - Malaysian GP report: Force India Mercedes

Sahara Force India scored 12 points in today’s Malaysian Grand Prix with Sergio Perez racing to sixth place ahead of Nico Hulkenberg in eighth place.

Sergio Perez

“It was a solid race for us today, but I think we were a bit unlucky with the way the race unfolded. At the start, things looked very positive: I had a good launch, stuck to the inside line and was up to third after turn one. There were some very quick cars behind me and I knew there was no point in fighting too hard and destroying my tyres. The key moment of my race was the first virtual safety car, because it handed a big advantage to those who were able to start on the medium tyres, and dropped me down the order when I pitted. To recover back to sixth place was a good effort and we know that every point will count in the fight to finish fourth in the constructors’ championship. I don’t think we made any wrong decisions today, but it was just that the circumstances played more against us and into the hands of others.”

Nico Hülkenberg

“Finishing eighth is a reasonable result, given the circumstances of the race. It was quite a tough afternoon: I made a very good start, but coming to turn one I had to avoid the accident between Rosberg and Vettel and that cost me two positions. Being stuck behind Jenson [Button] cost me a lot of time in the first two stints and I just couldn’t overtake him. Losing the track position so early on made it very difficult to finish higher up, despite the speed we had in the car today. I believe our strategy was the correct one for our race, but it’s very hard to overtake here and it just didn’t play out in our favour. All in all, we can be happy about putting two cars inside the points; we have increased our advantage a little and it should help us in what is going to be a very interesting end of the season.”

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal

“To come away from Malaysia with another 12 points added to our tally represents an excellent effort by the entire team. It was quite an eventful race, with various incidents going on around us, but we managed to stay out of trouble and bring home a solid result. We were a little unfortunate with the timing of the first virtual safety car, but we reacted well and made the correct decisions from the pit wall. The car showed good race pace and both drivers have performed well all weekend. The points scored have given us some more breathing space in the battle for fourth place in the championship, but as today proved it’s going to remain a very close fight over the remaining five events.”