01/11/2013
NEWS STORY
Sahara Force India completed a busy day of free practice today at Yas Marina Circuit with Paul Di Resta, Adrian Sutil and James Calado all behind the wheel of the VJM06.
Paul Di Resta: "It's been quite a positive day. The general balance is not too bad, although there's still work to do to improve the car through the high-speed part of the lap. The main issue of the afternoon was the brake failure on the front left, which caused me to run wide at turn eight. The team chose to change the brake material, which cost us about 15 minutes of track time, but we were able to do a long run on the soft tyre at the end of the session."
Adrian Sutil: "It's hard to say too much about today because we had to change the brake material in the middle of the second session. That had quite a big impact on the car and it was difficult to make a comparison with the set-up changes. There is quite a big difference between the two tyre compounds and at the moment I'm struggling more with the medium tyres. The general balance of the car felt okay so I'm still positive we can be in good shape tomorrow."
James Calado: "Yas Marina Circuit is a track I know really well so it was easy to get up to speed today and within one or two laps I was feeling quite comfortable. The rest of the session went pretty well and I was able to complete the comparison work with the set-up. The balance felt good, but I was suffering with high tyre wear on the medium, especially through the final sector."
Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: "It's been a positive day overall. The only real issue was the brake failure on Paul's car, which fortunately did not cost us too much track time. He was able to return to the pits and we fitted new brake material to both cars as a precautionary measure. I feel optimistic that we can build on the performance level we showed in India last weekend. The long run pace looks competitive, especially on the soft tyre, and both drivers felt happy with the general balance."
Check out our Friday gallery, here.