Not more than a step in the right direction

Barcelona - People who know Nico Hulkenberg can confirm, that he always analyses the situation quite realisticly and matter-of-factly. He would never overestimate testing results. That is why there is no need for euphoria, although The Hulk ended up at the top of the time sheet on day two of the winter testing in Barcelona. On Wednesday he clocked a 1:22.608, which meant the fastest lap time of the Barcelona testing so far.

"Having done the quickest time does not mean anything to me," The Hulk said. Obviously, besides making the driver feel comfortable in the car, testing pursues three main goals: data, data and even more data. The data that have been collected by the team during the last two days mean a good baseline. "The car has been very driveable and our baseline set-up has proved to be a good starting point for running all the different tyre compunds," Nico added.

But it's not only the driveability of the car, that makes the team happy. The VJM05 proved to be very reliable with 209 completed laps in two days without any technical issues, which means a total mileage of 973 km. Last year reliability was trumps, and again the Silverstone based team seem to have built a well-working car.

As said before, during the testing it's all about collecting data, which was done successfully so far. "Nico's feedback on the car continues to be positive and we now have a good feel for the set-up directions we need to take to extract even more performance," Jakob Andreasen, Sahara Force India's Chief Engineer, said.

Obviously there is not much to complain about at the moment and everybody in the team is looking forward to the season. With The Hulk having done the second quickest time on Tuesday and the quickest time on Wednesday the optimism even increased a little bit.

However, nobody will be disappointed, if Sahara Force India should not win both titles. Just because everybody knows, that successful testing is a step in the right direction - but not more.


by Timo Gans