Sahara Force India enjoyed a competitive opening day of practice in Baku with Sergio Perez ending the evening session in P3 ahead of teammate Nico Hulkenberg in P5.Sergio Perez VJM09-02FP1: 1:48.922 (P6) 17 lapsFP2: 1:45.336 (P3) 37 lapsSergio: “I knew when I walked the track yesterday that it was going to be good fun to drive - and today didn’t disappoint. It’s an amazing circuit: really challenging, no margin for error, and a real pleasure to drive. I kept things tidy today, but it’s easy to make a mistake and we saw that when cars do run wide they really pay a high penalty. It’s been a very positive day for us. The car felt good as soon as we started the first session and we were up there straight away with competitive times. That’s a good sign for the rest of the weekend and I’m feeling optimistic about our performance.”

Nico Hülkenberg VJM09-03FP1: 1:49.301 (P10) 27 lapsFP2: 1:45.920 (P5) 37 lapsNico: “Coming here to Baku has been great fun and the track is very cool. It’s got a bit of everything, with long straights, big braking zones and some exciting high-speed corners, which all the drivers enjoy. So, overall you have to say they’ve done a really good job with the circuit and it makes a nice change to come here and try something that is so different. In terms of our performance, I’m pleased with how things went today: the car feels well balanced and we made some improvements between the two sessions. We have good speed in the car and we are on the pace with some competitive laptimes. It’s a good starting point heading into the weekend.”

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal“Congratulations to everybody involved in bringing this race to the calendar. The city of Baku has given us an extremely warm welcome and they’ve delivered an outstanding circuit. Both our drivers love the layout and managed to get up to speed quickly during the opening session. Our performance looks promising at this stage and we also showed good consistency during the long runs. Of course, heading into qualifying there will be some fine-tuning to ensure we find some more speed, but we’ve had a successful first day on track and have a good understanding of the car.”