Robert Fernley: “We are more consistent than the other teams”
Friday ,21 October 2011
The Indian Grand Prix will be a big event for everyone in the Sahara Force India team, and not least Deputy Team Principal, Robert Fernley, who 30 years ago helped Dr Vijay Mallya to run his Ensign F1 car in India. We asked Robert about the team’s upcoming home race and also the last event in Korea, where the team picked up another point with Paul
Are you excited about finally having a Grand Prix in India?
“Absolutely, for Vijay and I personally, it’s a great thrill. It was 1981 when we first took the Ensign to India. I can’t believe that we’re racing there!”
What are your expectations for the weekend?
“We need to try and get ourselves into the points and have a good, solid race. Hopefully the type of track that India is fits in well with our downforce levels. We expect Abu Dhabi to be good as well.”
Paul finished 10th in Korea, although he lost out to the Toro Rossos. How do you see that result?
“I think from a race point of view it was probably as good as we could do, we were just beaten by cars that were quicker. We’ve obviously got to look at ourselves to see what we can improve.”
How did things go from the start in Korea?
“Paul held position behind Petrov and stayed there quite comfortably. Adrian lost a place to Michael, but that could be expected because Michael started on the options, and we put Adrian on the primes. Adrian had a very good first stint, and Paul had a reasonably good one. The original concept for Paul was to give him a three-stop strategy, but we converted it to a two.”
Did the safety car help or hinder you this time?
“At the second stops we got them both in under the safety car, which was fine. We didn’t lose anything, other than once you have a safety car it closes everyone up again. But then we simply didn’t have the pace to defend against Toro Rosso.”
Did that come as a surprise?
“You can’t fault their pace, it was impressive, and we couldn’t defend against it. I don’t think from a strategy point of view we could have done much more. We were beaten by a quicker team. We had a similar conversation at the end of the race in Suzuka, where Sergio Perez did purple sectors and incredible times, very close to the Ferrari pace, and Toro Rosso were nowhere near us. And a week later, the situation was reversed!”
Any final thoughts on the team’s potential in India?
“It’s not going to be hugely different from Korea, where we qualified well, and we raced well, and it was just frustrating not to be able to match certain other cars. But I think we are more consistent than the other teams that we’re racing so hopefully we can keep picking up the points.”
Credit: Sahara Force India Formula One Team (www.forceindiaf1.com)
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