Force India are happy with their performance in qualifying for the Malaysia Grand Prix as they hope to remain ahead of Williams in the Constructors’ Championship where just one point is the gap between both teams.
While it was close between both teams, Force India came out on top of the fight securing seventh and eighth on the grid respectively with Sergio Perez ahead of teammate Nico Hulkenberg.
“I’m very happy with our performance,” Perez said after qualifying at Sepang.
“It was very important to execute a perfect qualifying session and I think that is what we did. It was a mega effort by the whole team. The whole qualifying hour was very intense because you could see how close together the lap times were for all the cars and I had to maximise each lap.
“I made a little mistake in Q2 on my last run, which could have cost me a place in Q3, but fortunately I managed to make it through. The result today means we are in a great position to fight for strong points tomorrow.”
While all the cars in the top 10 are starting on the soft tyre, the degradation on the newly resurfaced Sepang circuit will help keep the tyres in shape which will no doubt favour the Silverstone based team, this will help give them more options for the strategy in the race.
Ahead of Sunday’s race, Hulkenberg will be looking to stay with Perez and keep ahead of both Williams drivers who start the race in 10th and 11th respectively.
“Eighth is a very good position to start tomorrow’s race,” added Hulkenberg.
“It’s going to be really close behind the leaders: I hope we can keep up with the cars in front and take the opportunity if anything happens. Our priority is to stay inside the points and maximise what we can get out of this race.”
