Monaco, 22 May 2014: An overcast day of practice in Monaco saw Sahara Force India end both sessions inside the top ten as Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez started preparations for Sunday’s Grand Prix.
Nico Hulkenberg VJM07-04
FP1: 1:19.865 (P10) 38 laps
FP2: 1:19.712 (P7) 10 lapsNico Hulkenberg during the Free Practice on Thursday. A Sahara Force India image
Nico: “The wet weather did not give us an opportunity to run much this afternoon, but I feel we have made the most of the time available this morning. In terms of performance the car is feeling okay and we just need to make some set-up tweaks and work on the balance beforeSaturday. The focus has to be on qualifying here because it’s even more important than at any other track. So we just need to optimise the car to be ready for Saturday.”
Sergio Perez VJM07-02
FP1: 1:19.666 (P8) 29 laps
FP2: 1:19.668 (P6) 9 laps
Sergio: “The day was disturbed by the weather so the work we have done is quite limited. I feel quite happy with the car and we ran in the top eight all day so it’s been positive. That’s where we need to be aiming for Saturday because qualifying well here is so important. There are still quite a few unknowns because I did not manage to do any long runs or race preparation, but it’s the same for everyone.”
Vijay Mallya, Team Principal & Managing Director
“We knew there was rain on the way so we tried to maximise the dry track time this morning. We made use of the extra set of tyres in the opening 30 minutes and completed the usual set-up tests to gather some data. In the afternoon it was simply a case of waiting for the track to dry because the forecast suggests the weekend will be dry and there was little value in running on a wet track. When the track had dried out we sent both cars out for the final ten minutes on the supersoft tyres, but with an evolving track it was hard to make any comparisons with this morning. The wet weather meant we missed out on the usual high fuel running this afternoon, but Nico did one long run this morning to give us some data, which will be useful for our race preparation.”
