Force India report from the fourth and final day of the second preseason test at Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona, ahead of the 2018 Formula 1 World Championship.
- Laps: 163
- Best time: 1:18.967
- Position: P8 of 12
- Mileage: 759km
Esteban Ocon: “It was another solid day and I feel quite confident heading to Melbourne. To complete more than 160 laps on the final day is a good achievement and ends a really solid week of work. We tried all our race weekend procedures today and went through the various processes we will need in Australia. We ran on several different tyre compounds and then concentrated on long runs this afternoon. I think we have a good idea of where we are but the real confirmation will come in Melbourne. It has been quite a long time since the last race in Abu Dhabi and I am itching to go racing again. I am really looking forward to arriving in Australia.”
Tom McCullough, Chief Race Engineer: “We were able to sign off pre-season testing with another productive day. Our programme was very similar to what we did yesterday, making sure we completed all our test items and reviewing all race weekend procedures with Esteban. The track conditions were possibly the best we’ve had over the last two weeks, so the significant amount of data we gathered will be very useful to our engineers. We can look back at these two weeks feeling pretty satisfied. Despite the time lost because of the weather last week, we were able to complete our ambitious programme and made good progress in understanding the VJM11. The reliability of our car was one of the highlights of testing: we were able to run solidly without any significant issues and, for a new car, this is a remarkable achievement. The whole team did a great job and we can now switch our focus to Melbourne.”