Esteban Ocon praised Force India for demonstrating ‘strength under pressure’ as he made it through to Q3 at the Bahrain Grand Prix.
Force India, fourth in the standings across 2016/17, suffered a double Q2 elimination in Australia and failed to score points in the race – the first time it had left the season-opener empty-handed this decade.
Ocon, though, put the VJM11 into the top 10 shootout at Sakhir and set the ninth-best time, which will result in him starting from eighth as a consequence of Lewis Hamilton’s grid demotion.
“I’m feeling pretty pleased with our performance,” said Ocon.
“We are back in Q3 after a huge effort by the team over the last two weeks.
“We did a huge amount of work [in practice] – testing, learning and understanding things on the car – and we can already see the improvement compared to Melbourne.
“It’s a good sign for the future and it shows the strength of this team even when we are under pressure.
“The car felt strong and I think we are in good shape for [the race]. Points are the target and we have good straight-line speed and decent race pace.”
Sergio Perez echoed Ocon’s positivity, despite finding himself eliminated in Q2.
“We made some good progress and we turned out to be closer to the front of the midfield than I thought we would be,” said Perez.
“I missed out on making Q3 by a very small margin, but it’s not too bad to be starting from P12.
“Grid position is not as important here as in other places so there is still plenty to fight for.
“I think we can score some points and it’s definitely a big opportunity for us. It’s going to be a long race and I think tyre management will be very important so hopefully that will play to our advantage.”
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