Valencia, Spain: Saturday, June 25, 2011
Paul starts tomorrow's European Grand Prix from 12th on the grid after a difficult weekend. The 25-year-old Scot sat out all but 10 minutes of Friday's two 90-minute Free Practice sessions after Force India reserve driver Nico Hulkenberg crashed his race car in the morning session.
Despite the limited track time, Paul narrowly missed out on a top 10 position today after lapping the Valencia harbourside track in a best time of 1min 39.422 secs.
"It was difficult," Paul admitted. "I think after Friday I was always going to be on the back foot having only done three timed laps. There was an unfortunate situation where Nico had an off in FP1 in my car which caused a lot of damage and took the guys quite a long time to repair yesterday.
"We went into this morning having changed something after three laps that didn't quite work, and we then had to revert back to our original set-up; we are where we are.
"I was up a little bit on my final lap in Q2 but I just seemed to make little mistake at Turn 17; I triggered something in the car and lost a downshift which lost me the advantage I'd gained on the rest of the lap.
"But I suppose it is what it is; you have to stay positive from it. We're in a position where I believe I can fight for points. The only thing which is uncertain is that I haven't done a long run with any high fuel, so I'm going into the race with an open mind of where to start he aero balance and stuff simply to get the maximum performance from the car.
"The biggest unknown is knowing how the car will perform under its high fuel load; at what point should you conserve the tyres a bit in the stint? But the biggest concern is what aero balance I'm going to start with, simply because I haven't driven the car with the fuel load.
"There's many things it leads to, even brake temperatures. People have been in this situation before and we'll just try and make the best we can from where we are, but hopefully I can still come through and score some good points."
And Paul's performance was praised by Force India owner Vijay Mallya.
"Paul has done an excellent job after losing nearly all his track time yesterday," the Indian billionaire said. "To qualify in P12 shows how well the entire team has worked to recover from a difficult situation.
"For tomorrow, we will fight hard and hopefully bring home some points.”
Source : Pauldiresta.com
Paul starts tomorrow's European Grand Prix from 12th on the grid after a difficult weekend. The 25-year-old Scot sat out all but 10 minutes of Friday's two 90-minute Free Practice sessions after Force India reserve driver Nico Hulkenberg crashed his race car in the morning session.Despite the limited track time, Paul narrowly missed out on a top 10 position today after lapping the Valencia harbourside track in a best time of 1min 39.422 secs.
"It was difficult," Paul admitted. "I think after Friday I was always going to be on the back foot having only done three timed laps. There was an unfortunate situation where Nico had an off in FP1 in my car which caused a lot of damage and took the guys quite a long time to repair yesterday.
"We went into this morning having changed something after three laps that didn't quite work, and we then had to revert back to our original set-up; we are where we are.
"I was up a little bit on my final lap in Q2 but I just seemed to make little mistake at Turn 17; I triggered something in the car and lost a downshift which lost me the advantage I'd gained on the rest of the lap.
"But I suppose it is what it is; you have to stay positive from it. We're in a position where I believe I can fight for points. The only thing which is uncertain is that I haven't done a long run with any high fuel, so I'm going into the race with an open mind of where to start he aero balance and stuff simply to get the maximum performance from the car.
"The biggest unknown is knowing how the car will perform under its high fuel load; at what point should you conserve the tyres a bit in the stint? But the biggest concern is what aero balance I'm going to start with, simply because I haven't driven the car with the fuel load.
"There's many things it leads to, even brake temperatures. People have been in this situation before and we'll just try and make the best we can from where we are, but hopefully I can still come through and score some good points."
And Paul's performance was praised by Force India owner Vijay Mallya.
"Paul has done an excellent job after losing nearly all his track time yesterday," the Indian billionaire said. "To qualify in P12 shows how well the entire team has worked to recover from a difficult situation.
"For tomorrow, we will fight hard and hopefully bring home some points.”
Source : Pauldiresta.com
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