Hulkenberg 5th, for best finish of the year

Valencia, 24 June 2012: Force India will take home 16 points from Valencia after a strong weekend saw Nico Hulkenberg land his best finish of the year with fifth and Paul Di Resta race a one-stop strategy to seventh.

Hulkenberg started eighth, on a two-stop strategy that saw him race used softs until a lap-14 switch to the medium compound. He stopped again on lap 28 for a second set of mediums and then attempted carve his way through the field.

Initially the plan worked, with the German climbing steadily from 12th to fifth, but as his long third stint ground on his tyres began to fade and he began to struggle. He could have been vaulted to third when Lewis Hamilton and Pastor Maldonado clashed while battling for the position, but at the same time, Michael Schumacher and Mark Webber, on newer soft tyres, were sweeping past to leave the Force India stuck in fifth.

Afterwards through, Hulkenberg hailed the performance as a “great achievement”.

“A great result for everyone in the team today and for me personally,” he said.  “Fifth place is a great achievement after a very long and difficult race. The two-stop strategy worked well, but the last stint was very long and it was hard to hold off the cars behind me on fresher tyres in the last few laps.

“So the race was a bit messy at times, but very entertaining and it feels great to come through and score such a good result for the team. We got a bit lucky with some cars dropping out, but we were in the right place to capitalise on things so I’m very happy about today.”

Di Resta, meanwhile, started the race from 10th on the on grid and on used soft tyres. He nursed those through to lap 23 when he took on medium tyres, which he tried to keep alive until the end of the race.

The strategy could have yielded a better result but a safety car in mid-race allowed the front runners a free stop and Di Resta’s chances were compromised. He battled on however, but his performance faded slightly as the tyres degraded in the closing stages and he too was passed by Schumacher and Webber. He did, however, cling on to seventh place.

“We went very aggressive by only stopping once and in fact we were the only car to pull off this strategy,” Of course, when you’re stopping once you really don’t want a safety car period and it certainly hurt my race and cost me some track position.

“But with the way the race unfolded we can’t be too disappointed to finish seventh and it’s great to have another two-car points finish. On the whole our relative pace through the race was strong, but it was hard to keep the tyre performance towards the end and I was really fighting the car in the closing laps. There was some attrition ahead of us, but we were there to pick up the points when it mattered.”

ends