Force India is aiming to come away from the Spanish Grand Prix with points after a disappointing result in qualifying. Both Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon failed to make it into Q3, and will line up in P15 and P13 respectively.
Speaking after Saturday's session, Ocon admitted that the team simply didn't have the pace to compete: "I am a bit disappointed about our end result because we didn’t really have the pace we expected.
"I was happy with how the car was set up and we can see the updates we brought here are working, but we need a little bit more to close the gap with the front of the pack.
"I am still feeling positive for the race. We are not too far away from the top ten and our race pace is not bad. We need a good start and then we’ll see what we can do. Last year I gained five places from start to finish and I’d be happy to do the same this year."
Sergio Perez arrives in Barcelona on a high, after he secured his first podium since 2016 last time out in Azerbaijan. However, he was bumped back down to earth on Saturday in Barcelona, blaming the tyres as the reason behind the lack of pace.
"Q1 was okay and the car and tyres were working well, but in Q2 we lost so much performance," said the former Sauber and McLaren driver. "It’s really odd because we used the same strategy as we did in Q1, but the tyres behaved totally differently.
"We could not switch them on and the car was sliding around, which is why my lap was four tenths slower than Q1. I still hope we can fight back tomorrow and come away with some points."
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Bahrain International Circuit - Winter testing
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