Shanghai: Sahara Force India returned without points for the second successive race as Sergio Perez finished 11th and Nico Hulkenberg did not finish the Chinese Grand Prix, here Sunday.
After beginning with seven points from the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, Force India have missed out on top-10 finish in Malaysia and now in Shanghai.
Perez though did a good job by getting close t o points bracket after starting 15th from the grid.
"We raced very hard, but in the end it wasn't quite enough to come away with some points. With the strategy we looked at all the opportunities and switched to three stops quite early in the race, which was the right decision. I was able to push hard all the time with the aggressive strategy and fight with the cars ahead of me," Perez said.
"We are still not where we want to be in terms of competitiveness, but there are definitely some positives to take because we made an improvement compared to our performance in Malaysia," the Mexican added.
Hulkenberg, who was in race for just 10 laps, said,"It is disappointing to end the race early."
"It would have been interesting to see how our race would have developed because I made some good progress on the opening lap when I went around the outside of a few cars and then got a good run at Kvyat, which put me up in P12. We had the pace to keep up with the Toro Rossos and Saubers, so it was positive to see our pace being more competitive. It is still too early to say what caused my retirement: the engineers are looking at the issue and still investigating. All we know at this stage is that I lost drive and had to park the car.
