Nico Hülkenberg confirms Sahara Force India’s good form
Nico Hülkenberg helped Sahara Force India score further valuable points with a fine seventh-place finish. Sergio Perez also managed to make up for a catastrophic start to climb back up to tenth place and collect a small point.
Behind the untouchable Mercedes, Red Bull, and Ferrari, Sahara Force India is increasingly positioning itself as the best of the rest, battling with Williams. Thus, the two teams divided the remaining spots in the top 10 at the end of the qualifiers, and the battle continued during the race.
Nico Hülkenberg acknowledges that the only rival he needed to be cautious of was Valtteri Bottas, after the troubles experienced by Felipe Massa and Sergio Perez at the start: « It was quite an isolated race and without problems since my main fight was with Bottas and we had different strategies. »
However, the two men initially set off with the same strategy, namely to make two stops. Nevertheless, Sahara Force India decided to switch to three stops due to the high tire degradation, while Williams preferred to persevere with this approach: « The team did a great job with the strategy because we started the race thinking we could do two stops but then quickly made the decision to switch to three stops. It was clearly the right decision, and it allowed me to take seventh place in the final laps. Tire degradation was very high. The main focus of the race was therefore to take care of the tires. »
Sergio Perez’s race, on the other hand, was much more complicated as the Mexican completely missed his start, causing him to lose many positions: “I think we can say it was the worst start of my career. I had a lot of wheel spin and dropped to 16th place. So it was a tough fight to climb back up the field. The team had to keep their feet on the ground and adjust the strategy to put me back in a competitive position.”
He thus managed to climb back up to the points, overtaking Fernando Alonso in the final laps even though his tires were quite damaged: « The tire degradation was quite high, especially when following other cars. I spent a lot of time in the middle of the race battling with Fernando. In the last laps, I had almost no tires left but I knew it was the same situation for Fernando. So when I saw an opportunity, I knew I had to take it. To be honest, I didn’t think I could score points after the first corner but we did it. »
The team will therefore need to maintain this good momentum after the summer break and continue to fight with Williams for the gain of fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.
