Austin, Texas: Sahara Force India enjoyed its first taste of the Circuit of the Americas on Friday as Paul Di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg completed busy free practice programmes in preparation for Sunday’s race.
Speaking about the circuit, Nico said that it was awesome. “I think the organisers have given us an awesome circuit. It’s good fun to drive and there is a nice variation of corners, which gives a nice rhythm to the track. In terms of the new generation of tracks, I’d say it’s one of my favourites. The day was pretty smooth and we had to make sure we collected lots of data because we don’t have any historic information to draw upon. We looked competitive this morning and seemed to struggle more in the afternoon, so we need to try and find some more grip overnight.”
Meanwhile Paul Di Resta said, “I said yesterday that getting the tyres working was going to be difficult – and so it proved today. The track surface is very smooth and the temperatures were not especially high, which probably didn’t help us. We’ve identified some issues and haven’t found the best direction with the set-up yet, so we need to work hard to make the car easier to drive. In terms of the layout of the track it’s very open and there are some nice corners, especially the first sector which has a great flow. A lot of the corners are off-camber, which also adds another challenge.”
Jakob Andreasen, Chief Engineer, said, “It hasn’t been the easiest day of practice for us and we need to work hard tonight to make the car perform better on this challenging circuit. We struggled in the first session with low grip – just as everyone did – but we didn’t find much improvement in the afternoon session. The layout here is a bit like Suzuka with a mix of high and low-speed corners, but it’s fair to say we haven’t found the right compromise with the set-up to cope with these two extremes. On the positive side our long run performance looked quite encouraging and when we go over the data tonight I’m sure we will find the clues to help us make the right decisions with the set-up going into tomorrow.”
