Hungaroring, 26 July 2013: It was a busy day of free practice for Sahara Force India at the Hungaroring where it saw Adrian Sutil and Paul Di Resta work through a comprehensive tyre programme ahead of tomorrow’s qualifying session.
Adrian Sutil VJM06-03
FP1: 1:23.390 P7 20 laps
FP2: 1:22.304 P10 41 laps
Adrian: “It was a positive morning session and quite early on I had found a good balance with the car. In the afternoon we were working mainly on the tyres and trying to get the most from them. I felt better on the soft compared to the medium, but it was tricky to get them working all the time. The main thing is that we got some good information and we can hopefully improve things for tomorrow. Apart from the tyres the overall balance is good: the car behaves well under braking and on turn-in, and I’m feeling comfortable.”
Paul Di Resta VJM06-04
FP1: 1:24.608 P18 21 laps
FP2: 1:22.526 P11 39 laps
Paul: “It’s not been the most straightforward of days and right from the start of practice I was chasing the set-up of the car. We definitely made some progress this afternoon, but there are a lot of things to discuss tonight to try and get on top of things ahead of qualifying. Today was the first chance to really start doing performance work with new tyre construction and we managed to do 60 laps, which gives us lots of information going into the weekend.”
Jakob Andreasen, Chief Race Engineer
“Changing tyre construction mid-way through the season presents a lot of challenges so today’s programme was largely focussed on learning more about the medium and soft compound tyres. It proved tricky to find the right operating window consistently, but it has been a very useful day in terms of learning and gathering the right data. As for the car balance, we made steady progress. Paul had a difficult morning but was happier with the car by the end of FP2. Adrian’s feedback was encouraging and he was inside the top ten during both sessions. With the high temperatures set to continue over the weekend, it’s clear that we still have some work to do.”
ends
Adrian Sutil at Hungary on Friday. A Sahara Force India photo
