Sahara Force India Secures More Points In US GP

Sergio had a three stop tyre strategy, opting New Supersoft for 10 laps, New Medium for 17 laps and again New Medium for the final run of 28 laps. After the race, he was pleased with his performance and talked about his recovery after the contact.

He said, "Eighth place was a good recovery after our race was compromised on lap one. I was hit hard from the rear under braking for turn 11 by Kvyat, who made a mistake and came in with no control. All of a sudden I was effectively in the last place and with a badly damaged car. It was a difficult recovery, but step by step we got back into the points and in the end we didn't get a bad result.

"We got all the strategy calls right and this helped us overcome the damage to the car because we made up positions in both pit stops. To come away with four points and to move up to seventh in the drivers' championship is a good result in these circumstances.

"It's important to hold on when you get a difficult weekend, especially in races with high attrition, and score every point you can get, but the regret remains because I think we could have finished fifth today."

Hulkenberg talked about his unfortunate United States GP race day. He said, "It's really disappointing to have another first lap retirement. I just ran out of space going into turn one because I got sandwiched between Valtteri [Bottas] on my left and Sebastian [Vettel] on the right.

"Sebastian turned in quite aggressively, made contact with me, and that pushed me into Valtteri. I think it could have been avoided if Sebastian had given us a bit more space, but it all happened so quickly and I had nowhere to go.

"It's really frustrating when you have a quick car and your race only lasts ten seconds. We had done all the hard work on Friday and Saturday, but all that effort counted for nothing."