Nico Hülkenberg remained stuck behind Romain Grosjean
Nico Hülkenberg kicked off his season with a strong 7th place. The German might have hoped for more if he hadn't been stuck behind Romain Grosjean for a good part of the race. Sergio Perez did not score points, finishing in 13th place.
During qualifying, Sahara Force India chose to secure 9th and 10th positions, allowing them to choose their tire strategy. For both cars, it was then decided to attempt a one-stop strategy.
Nevertheless, this strategy was completely called into question by the red flag caused by the collision between Fernando Alonso and Esteban Gutierrez, as explained by Nico Hülkenberg: « I think the red flag made things much more complicated for our one-stop strategy because it allowed everyone to change their tires. It was really a shame because it meant I wasn’t in the right position and I was stuck behind the Haas for the majority of the race. »
The German was not able to try everything to overtake the Frenchman because he himself was under threat from the cars behind him. He had to find a clever balance between attack and defense: « It wasn’t easy to get close to Romain and I had many cars behind me, which means I was under pressure and had to defend as well. »
In the end, he could be satisfied with scoring the valuable points for 7th place. His teammate, Sergio Perez, couldn’t say the same as he only finished in a modest 13th place. The Mexican’s race was compromised right from the start: “My problems started from the beginning: I lost a few places, and that put me in a very difficult position. I spent most of my first stint behind Alonso, who had a faster set of tires. Being stuck in dirty air destroyed my tires.”
But things did not improve afterward since after Alonso, it was Jenson Button’s McLaren that thwarted his plans: « Unfortunately, there was a very similar situation after the restart because I was overtaken by Jenson, who had super softs, which again cost me a lot of time. »
With all the time spent behind competitors, the VJM09’s mechanics were put to the test and began to show signs of weakness towards the end of the race: At the end, I had an overheating issue with my tires, probably because I spent most of the race in traffic, but we still managed to finish the race.
