28/07/2017
NEWS STORY
Sahara Force India completed a routine day of practice in Budapest with Sergio Perez, Esteban Ocon and Alfonso Celis sharing driving duties in preparation for this weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix.
Sergio Perez: "Our long run pace looks promising, but I think there's still a lot we can find in terms of performance. The track improved a lot between the morning and the afternoon sessions, but it was still very windy and it made things quite difficult. It's very hard to overtake here so there's a big emphasis on qualifying tomorrow. I haven't been totally comfortable with the balance of the car so far but I am confident we can get it together and be in a position to fight for the top ten."
Esteban Ocon: "I was in the car this afternoon and I think I caught up with things pretty quickly. I found a nice rhythm straight away and I've ended the day feeling comfortable in the car. It's clear we have some work to do tonight to find a bit more performance, but we've done a lot of the hard work and we know where we need to improve. They have made some changes to the kerbs this year, which impact on the character of this circuit a little bit. I preferred the old style kerbs, but it's still an awesome track and I really enjoy driving here."
Alfonso Celis: "It's not been an easy session with the red flags coming at the worst possible times. When I finally got a chance to do a flying lap, I struggled to get the tyres in the right temperature window. At the beginning of the session, I found the car to be a bit unbalanced and difficult to drive. The changes we made in the second part helped and gave me more confidence. It's great to get back in the car after a couple of races because it allows me to really feel the way the car is improving. Even since Austria, the performance keeps getting better."
Robert Fernley: "It's been quite a disrupted Friday, with lots of yellow and red flags interfering with our work. We had a pretty comprehensive test programme, split between our two cars, and although we did manage to get through it, we didn't collect as much data as we had hoped. Esteban and Sergio are reasonably happy with the car, but of course there is still plenty of work to do to improve our performance during both the low and high-fuel runs. The battle in the midfield will be very tight tomorrow: margins will be small and any gain or mistake can mean a big swing in positions."
Check out our Friday gallery from Hungary, here.