Malaysian GP: Force India happy with top-10 finish

Sepang: Sahara Force India drivers Paul Di Resta and Nico Hulkenberg were happy with their top-10 finish in the Malaysian Grand Prix here Sunday.

Sahara Force India came through the rain showers to pick up eight championship points as Di Resta raced to seventh place ahead of Hulkenberg, who finished ninth.

Di Resta said the start of the race was a bit of a mess and it was all about trying to stay on the track and stay out of trouble.

"I did pretty well until (Pastor) Maldonado hit me just before the red flag, which spun me around and cost me about three places. At the restart our pace was very good on the intermediate tyres and we were able to get well up the order and stay with the leading group. As it dried out we switched to dry tyres at the same time everyone else did, which was the safe way to play it, and just tried to hold position in the points. We were a bit lucky with some of the issues for cars ahead, but in races like this you need a bit of luck and given where we started I think we can come away from here very happy with this result," he said.

Hulkenberg said Sunday's performance with two cars in the points was a great team result.

"I'm very happy to pick up my first points of the season. It was quite a complicated race and the rain certainly helped mix things up, but we made the most of our chances and made good calls on the strategy. I have to say that the wet conditions today were some of the worst I've raced in and the visibility was almost zero before the race was stopped. It was much better when the race restarted, but I struggled with the balance of the car on the intermediates, so it was just a case of trying to stay in the points and catch Vergne ahead," he said.

Robert Fernley, deputy team principal, said result was due to a tremendous team effort with everybody rising to the challenges presented by the tricky conditions.

"It was an especially busy race on the pit wall, but on the whole I think we made the right calls, especially the timing of our switch to the dry tyres, and both drivers delivered very strong performances. It was important to pick up points on a day like this and given where we started we have to be happy with eight points. We now head to China determined to carry on this momentum and hopefully add some more points to our tally," he said. (IANS)