Force India takes 14th, 15th pole in Australian GP

Sahara Force India F1 Team driver Nico Hulkenberg

Melbourne, March 14 (IANS) Formula One team Force India will line up in the 14th and 15th position for Sunday's Australian Grand Prix. Force India driver Nico Hulkenberg ended Saturday's qualifying session in 14th spot, just one thousandth of a second ahead of teammate Sergio Perez. Hulkenberg said that Saturday's performance was not something to talk about, but felt the team would perform much better in the days to come.

"We always want to be further up the grid, but being realistic I don't think we had the performance on Saturday to challenge the others," Hulkenberg was quoted as saying in a Force India release.

"However, it's only the first qualifying session of the season, so it's still very early days and we have a lot of development work ahead of us."

The 27-year-old German driver asserted that team's pace during the main event will be stronger than the qualifying pace.

"I am optimistic that our race pace will be stronger than our qualifying pace, as was often the case last year, so I'm looking forward to the race." he said.

His teammate Perez, who finished in the 15th position, said the wind did pose a big problem to their drivers.

"It was quite a difficult qualifying session and the windy conditions seemed to have a big impact on our car. In terms of performance, we are where we predicted," Perez said.

On Sunday's final race, he said, "We know this is a race where anything can happen. It's unpredictable and sometimes you have to be patient. We need to see what the weather is like because the wind and track temperature will play a big part."