Nico Hülkenberg places Sahara Force India in Q3, Perez misses out
Thanks to a last attempt in Q2, Nico Hülkenberg managed to slip into Q3 and qualify 8th on the grid. However, Sergio Perez got caught out and will start only 18th.
In Australia, both Sahara Force India cars chose to settle for 9th and 10th places in Q2 in order to freely choose their tire strategy during the race. This time, Nico Hülkenberg preferred to set the best possible time, aided by a completely empty track at the end of Q2.
Nevertheless, he only had time to complete one lap in Q3 and settled for 8th place: « It’s a good result to make it to Q3 because we’ve had to work hard this weekend to achieve the performance we needed. The changes made last night went in the right direction and made the difference today. In qualifying, the car continuously improved and the track helped us well towards the end. All my laps were clean and I am happy with our performance level. »
He hopes therefore that he will be able to score points again at the end of the race, even though he knows that Romain Grosjean and the other drivers behind him have the benefit of choosing their tire strategy: « Let’s hope that tomorrow evening will be a similar story because I think we can score good points. It’s true that the cars just behind me have a free choice of tires but I’m happy with where I start because it’s always better to be higher up on the grid. »
This is not something his teammate, Sergio Perez, will contradict. Indeed, the Mexican driver ran out of time to complete a new stint in Q1, finishing with the 18th time of the session and being eliminated in Q1: “We were unlucky and miscalculated. I think the mistake was doing one more lap during my first stint in Q1 because it left me with too little time for my second stint. We got caught out and it damages my race for tomorrow.”
The task of scoring points will therefore only be more difficult.
With the participation of www.racingbusiness.fr
