American GP - Qualifying - Force India driver quotes

Force India
Paul di Resta (12th, Q2 - 1m 38.139s)
“I’m reasonably happy with today’s result because this is a track that does not particularly suit my driving style. The wind picked up quite a bit before qualifying, which made the conditions tricky and I think we made the most of that. We out-qualified some quick cars today and in the end I was just a tenth away from making Q3. I was planning to go for a final quick lap in Q2, but I came across Lewis [Hamilton] on my out lap, who was cooling his tyres. It meant my out lap was compromised so we aborted the run. We can make a free choice on tyres tomorrow and we’ve shown recently that our performance on race day has been our strength. If we can make a good start and optimise the strategy, then points will be within reach.”

Adrian Sutil (17th, Q1 - 1m 39.250s)
“It’s a disappointing result today. The car has been quick through all the sessions, but things didn’t go to plan today. I had to overtake a lot of traffic on my quick lap in Q1, including a Marussia going into the final corner, and that cost me the chance of making Q2. I then started another lap and suffered a brake disc failure on the front right, which ended the session for me. So I’m starting in P17 and I just hope we can do something with the strategy to try and get up into the points tomorrow.”

Dr Vijay Mallya, Force India team principal and managing director
“It was a mixed qualifying result for Sahara Force India. Paul had a good session and made a big improvement between final practice and qualifying. He’s put himself in a strong position to race for points tomorrow. Adrian was unlucky with traffic compromising his best opportunity in Q1. His final chance of a quick lap ended with a brake disc failure on the front right corner, which resulted in a puncture. It’s unfortunate because he was not able to show the true speed of the car. The task for us now is to try use the strategy to bring him into contention for points.”

Source : Formula1.com

Friday practice - Force India driver quotes

Adrian Sutil, P1 - 1:39.699, 14th; P2 - 1:38.719, 11th
“It’s my first visit to Austin and I have to say I really like the track. There are some nice corners and some tricky ones where it’s easy to make small mistakes. It’s not that easy to learn the track either because it’s a challenging lap, especially the high-speed sections. We worked hard to improve the car set-up today, but the balance is still not where I want it to be. Hopefully we can make some positive changes overnight. As for the tyres, there is not a big difference between the hard and the medium, but we managed long runs on each compound so should be well prepared for the weekend.”

Paul di Resta, P1 - 1:39.836, 15th; P2 - 1:39.410, 15th
“It’s been a difficult day to understand exactly where we are and I don’t think my position in FP2 is a true reflection of our competitiveness. I came across some traffic on my best lap so Adrian’s position is probably more representative. The long runs looked more promising and if we get everything together we can hopefully match the performance level we’ve shown for the last few races. The focus tonight will be on tyres: understanding them more and how to manage them over the weekend.”

Dr Vijay Mallya, Team principal and Managing Director
“It’s great to be back in Austin. The circuit still looks spectacular and the welcome from the American fans is always fantastic. Despite the disrupted morning session we made good progress today and both cars covered plenty of laps. It was a new experience for Adrian, who is driving here for the first time, but by the end of the morning session he was fully up-to-speed. Both drivers have yet to find the optimum balance and the track conditions meant it was hard to be consistent and difficult to make comparisons. The engineers have lots of data to analyse tonight to make sure we get the most from the tyres in qualifying and the race.”

Source : Formula1.com

America GP- Force India Preview quotes

Paul di Resta, Force India
2012 Qualifying - 13th, 2012 Race - 15th
“It’s great to have a race there, especially at such an impressive facility. I still remember the huge crowd that came to the race last year and the amazing atmosphere. The place was absolutely packed and the whole city was very enthusiastic about Formula One. We go there with high hopes and will try and build on the performance of Abu Dhabi.
“Sector one stands out for me. It’s very similar to the Maggots and Becketts sequence at Silverstone and the fast chicanes work the car and tyres really hard. It’s a very enjoyable part of the lap and those corners really show you the potential of a Formula One car. The rest of the lap is quite open with a great flow. A lot of the corners are off-camber, too, which adds another challenge.”

Adrian Sutil, Force India
2012 Qualifying - n/a, 2012 Race - n/a
“I’ve spent time in America before. I’ve been to a few of the big cities: New York, Los Angeles and Miami, but never to Texas. I hear it’s a beautiful place with a lot happening so it sounds like a great location. I've heard lots of good things about the Circuit of The Americas, too.
“It’s a very unusual lap with a big variation of corners. The first sector is interesting with so many turns one after the other and it looks like there are some nice high-speed corners. The feedback I’ve heard is very positive and everyone says it’s smooth and enjoyable to drive. From what I’ve seen it appears to be one of the better new generation tracks so I’m looking forward to getting there and trying it for myself.”

Dr Vijay Mallya, Force India team principal
“We’ve scored 15 points in two races and we now have some breathing space behind us. But we won’t change our approach heading to Austin. We will go there focussed on closing the gap to fifth place, which is just 18 points. I think everybody was impressed by our first visit to Austin last year. The race was a real success and it’s great to see the interest from such an important market. We were in the points last year and we go there determined to get some more this year.”

Source : Formula1.com 

Di Resta feels sixth proves worth to Force India

 

Paul di Resta believes his sixth place in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix proves Force India should retain him for 2014. 

Di Resta's future is uncertain after three seasons with the team, with Force India likely to make a decision on its driver line-up after the end of the season. However, having held off Lewis Hamilton to secured a top six finish at Yas Marina, di Resta said he had shown what he is capable enough when given a quick car.

"I've always said I would like to stay with the team; I would like to stay in Formula One more importantly," di Resta said. "But if they give me the tools I can deliver and I think that proves what I can do. I expect the decision very soon from the senior management as they said, but I will keep focusing on the races and let the management team do the business in the background."
Di Resta said he was especially pleased to hold off a Mercedes in the closing laps.

"It's a great feeling to finish sixth and make the one-stop strategy work. I said yesterday that we had opted to set the car up more for the race and it really paid off today. There were times when we had to be very quick and times when we had to manage the pace and look after the tyres. Towards the end of the race I was battling with Fernando and Lewis, but it was impossible to hold Fernando back because he was on much fresher soft tyres.

"Lewis was on the mediums so I just focussed on getting clean exits from the hairpin and the chicane leading onto the long straights, and was able to stay ahead. The eight points are just what we needed and everybody in the team deserves credit for the big effort that has gone in this week. That's two strong weekends in a row and we will move to Austin determined to keep up the momentum." 

Source : En.espnf1.com

Abu Dhabi GP- Race- Force India driver quotes

Paul di Resta, 6th
“It’s a great feeling to finish sixth and make the one-stop strategy work. I said yesterday that we had opted to set the car up more for the race and it really paid off today. There were times when we had to be very quick and times when we had to manage the pace and look after the tyres. Towards the end of the race I was battling with Fernando and Lewis, but it was impossible to hold Fernando back because he was on much fresher soft tyres. Lewis was on the mediums so I just focussed on getting clean exits from the hairpin and the chicane leading onto the long straights, and was able to stay ahead. The eight points are just what we needed and everybody in the team deserves credit for the big effort that has gone in this week. That’s two strong weekends in a row and we will move to Austin determined to keep up the momentum.”

Adrian Sutil, 10th
“Considering that I started in P17 I have to be quite satisfied about scoring a point and I’m happy about the team result today. It’s not been an easy weekend with the problems I had during practice and qualifying, but the strategy today was the right one and we came away with a point. I was running in ninth until the last lap ahead of Perez, but by that time I had done 27 laps on the soft tyres and it was very hard to defend because I had no traction out of the slow speed corners. The points scored in the last two races have been very important for the championship position.”

Bob Fernley, Force India deputy team principal
“The whole team can feel very proud of today’s result, which sets us up nicely for the final couple of races. With nine points in the bag the sixth place in the championship is looking much more realistic and we are only 18 points away from fifth place. Despite the limited practice mileage on Friday we felt confident of pulling off the one-stop strategy, just as we did in India last weekend. Paul and Adrian drove faultless races, looked after their tyres when they needed to and showed very strong pace throughout. It’s rewarding to see the progress we have made in the last couple of races, which is a result of all the hard work behind the scenes. We’ve kept our heads down, worked hard and it is starting to show. We now look forward to Austin with optimism and hope to build on the performance of the last two races.”

Source : Formula1.com

Abu Dhabi GP- Qualifying - Force India driver quotes

Paul di Resta (12th, Q2 - 1:41.133)
“I am pretty satisfied with P12, which puts us in a reasonable position for tomorrow. I’m feeling good in the car, which has worked well all weekend. For tomorrow I’m optimistic that we can be up there with a good chance of picking up some points. The car is responding well and I also think we are more suited to the race than qualifying. There’s a long race ahead of us, but we will work hard to put together a good strategy tonight and try to push our way forward in the race.”

Adrian Sutil (18th, Q1 - 1:42.051)
“I’ve not been feeling comfortable with the car this weekend. The practice sessions have not been easy and I just can’t find a balance that is working for me. It started in second practice yesterday when we had the issue with the brakes and since then I’ve been struggling. We made some changes before qualifying, which were an improvement, but it was not enough to progress to Q2. So we are disappointed with P18, but it’s the result of things not coming together for us. It’s a long and tough race here, but I still look forward to it and will try my best to improve our performance.”

Robert Fernley, Force India deputy team principal
“It’s encouraging to see Paul up in P12 and only a tenth away from the top ten. He’s been happy with the car performance from the start of practice and has progressed with each run. We have a good race car, with consistent pace over long runs, which will hopefully allow us to join the fight for points. On the other side of the garage it has been quite a challenging weekend for Adrian. He’s not been comfortable with the car and, despite our best efforts, we’ve not found the right direction to give him a balance that gives him confidence. It will be an interesting race tomorrow and hopefully our strategy decisions tonight will allow us to move forward with both cars.”

Source : Formula1.com

Friday practice - Force India driver quotes

Force India
Paul di Resta, P1 - 1:45.040, 7th; P2 - 1:42.806, 13th
“It’s been quite a positive day. The general balance is not too bad, although there’s still work to do to improve the car through the high-speed part of the lap. The main issue of the afternoon was the brake failure on the front left, which caused me to run wide at turn eight. The team chose to change the brake material, which cost us about 15 minutes of track time, but we were able to do a long run on the soft tyre at the end of the session.”

Adrian Sutil, P2 - 1:42.998, 15th
“It’s hard to say too much about today because we had to change the brake material in the middle of the second session. That had quite a big impact on the car and it was difficult to make a comparison with the set-up changes. There is quite a big difference between the two tyre compounds and at the moment I’m struggling more with the medium tyres. The general balance of the car felt okay so I’m still positive we can be in good shape tomorrow.”

James Calado, P1 - 1:45.924, 14th
“Yas Marina Circuit is a track I know really well so it was easy to get up to speed today and within one or two laps I was feeling quite comfortable. The rest of the session went pretty well and I was able to complete the comparison work with the set-up. The balance felt good, but I was suffering with high tyre wear on the medium, especially through the final sector.”

Robert Fernley, Force India deputy team principal
“It’s been a positive day overall. The only real issue was the brake failure on Paul’s car, which fortunately did not cost us too much track time. He was able to return to the pits and we fitted new brake material to both cars as a precautionary measure. I feel optimistic that we can build on the performance level we showed in India last weekend. The long run pace looks competitive, especially on the soft tyre, and both drivers felt happy with the general balance.”

Source : Formula1.com