GP Germany preview with Tonio

After Tonio finished just outside the points at Force India’s home race in Silverstone last week, he is now determined to grab some points at the next round of the FIA Formula One World Championship, the German Grand Prix. Held at the Hockenheim circuit in the heart of Germany’s Rhine Valley, the race will be a sort of homecoming for Tonio, who raced in German F3 in 2002.

Silverstone was another challenging weekend – how would you review the performance over the weekend now you’ve digested all the facts?
“It was a tough weekend and I do feel it was like another missed opportunity, not only to score points but to have a good event overall. Things went badly in qualifying and then it was made several times worse by the penalty I was given for blocking Nico Hulkenberg. We then lost a lot of time in the first part of the race with massive amounts of understeer, which is something we need to get to the bottom of.”

“Looking at how the rest of the race panned out, if I hadn’t had this delay at the start of the race we could have aimed for the points. Fortunately when we pitted for soft tyres we had a really competitive pace and were really strong in the final laps. I had a good battle with Fernando Alonso so it was very encouraging for a Force India to be genuinely keeping a Ferrari behind on pace. All the same I just missed out on the points despite the good performance. It can’t happen again in Hockenheim as our rivals are getting stronger all the time.”

What will be your key areas of focus this weekend?
“We’ve really got to concentrate on getting into Q3 this race. We can easily get into Q2 but then we struggle a little to get the soft tyres to warm up. Adrian’s had a similar issue in that on Saturday morning we are really confident after final practice, but in the afternoon it can go a bit wrong. If we can get the qualifying right – as we saw in Canada – then the race will come to us.”

What are your expectations for Hockenheim?
“I really enjoy racing at Hockenheim as I feel I grew up there. I raced in German F3 in 2002 and also won the 2004 F3000 race there. It’s a great track, very flowing with some very fast curves and the Motodrom section is really like a stadium – you can hear the crowd over your helmet sometimes so it’s an extra thrill. I’ve not raced there since 2006, when I finished 10th, so it’s been a relatively good track for me. I’m looking forward to it. We also have some smaller new developments and if we can get the whole weekend together from start to finish we should be able to pick up some more points.”