Abu Dhabi and Friday was a tricky combination for Force India, with Nico Hülkenberg and Paul di Resta able to salvage only 13th and 15th from the second 90-minute session of the day. The team is now working hard to improve ahead of qualifying.
“I think it’s still difficult to know where our performance level is right now, but we probably need to raise our game and improve a bit overnight if we want to challenge for points,” admits German Hülkenberg, having completed his first day on-track since being confirmed at Sauber for the 2013 Formula 1 season.
“The balance is not perfect just yet, so we need to work tonight to get the car closer to the sweet spot. Apart from that we got through the programme, collected all the tyre data and so it was a fairly normal Friday.”
His Scottish team-mate concurs that there is a mountain to climb.
“There’s a lot of work ahead of us to understand where we stand and where we can improve,” di Resta says. “This track is all about grip in the low and medium-speed corners and that’s where we need to focus tonight.”
Force India’s best single race result at Yas Marina is Adrian Sutil’s eighth place of last year. On that occasion, di Resta came home ninth in a double points-scoring finish.
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| Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  S. Vettel | Red Bull | 01:41.751 | 33 |
| 2. | L. Hamilton | McLaren | 01:41.919 | 33 |
| 3. | J. Button | McLaren | 01:42.412 | 35 |
| 4. | M. Webber | Red Bull | 01:42.466 | 21 |
| 5. | R. Grosjean | Lotus | 01:42.500 | 34 |
| 6. | K. Raikkonen | Lotus | 01:42.532 | 27 |
| 7. | F. Alonso | Ferrari | 01:42.587 | 30 |
| 8. | F. Massa | Ferrari | 01:42.823 | 32 |
| 9. | P. Maldonado | Williams | 01:42.998 | 37 |
| 10. | S. Perez | Sauber | 01:43.106 | 36 |
| Full results | ||||
| Nico Hülkenberg | |||
|---|---|---|---|
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| More Nico Hülkenberg photos | |||
| Paul di Resta | |||
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| More Paul di Resta photos | |||
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