Force India: Our best day of testing so far

Force India report from day two of the second preseason test at Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona, ahead of the 2018 Formula 1 World Championship.

Esteban Ocon: “I’m really happy with today. 130 laps is a great effort and we’ve learned a huge amount. The long runs went well and our pace looks promising at this stage. It’s going to help us take some steps forward as we prepare for Melbourne. It will be interesting to see how Checo feels after his day in the car tomorrow, but I feel optimistic after the work we’ve done today. There are plenty of things to analyse and more questions to answer, but we still have two days of testing. I think we are in a good place at the moment.”

Tom McCullough, Chief Race Engineer: “Today was a textbook day of testing – something we really needed considering all the time lost up to this point. We had a very ambitious run plan, which we completed in addition to some extra things. The car ran reliably and we continued gathering the data that is so important at this time of year, so we are pleased with our work. We are now building a better understanding of the VJM11. We did some set-up work in the afternoon and continued our programme with the new tyres. It’s been our best day of testing so far and hopefully we will get two more days like this in the rest of the week.”