It wasn't the most productive Friday for the Force India Formula One team in Sepang with two shortened free practice sessions on Friday.
However, it was the same situation for all the teams and their job now is to try and learn as much as they can from the limited running they had.
Esteban Ocon ran on the intermediates in the morning's wet session to be prepared in case they get more rain over the weekend.
Then, in the afternoon, the baseline balance of the car was pretty good and the team moved into their scheduled test programme to evaluate different parts spread across the two cars.
They will have another hour of practice later today to fine-tune the car, but believe they are in reasonable shape already…
“It was a strange day. There was nothing we could do about the weather this morning and in the afternoon the weird incident to Grosjean cost us all some track time. Despite the interruptions, we still managed to complete some good mileage,” Esteban said.
“The car feels quite nice at the moment and I am looking forward to tomorrow. Driving the new cars around here is very enjoyable: they are just so fast around the quick corners. The weather tomorrow will play a big part, but for me it doesn't matter if it's wet or dry. The rain would probably give us some more opportunities, but we have good pace in the dry so I think we will be competitive either way.”
