Monaco: Force India's Hulkenberg to start in 5th row

Nico Hulkenberg and team-mate Paul Di Resta will start at the fifth and seventh rows respectively on the grid as Force India had a decent qualifying session at the Monaco Formula One Grand Prix on Saturday.

Hulkenberg qualified in P11 ahead of Di Resta in P15. With a grid penalty for Pastor Maldonado of Renault, both the Sahara Force India drivers moved up a place on the starting grid.

Hulkenberg, who clocked 1:15.418 in Q1 and 1:15.421 in Q2, said he was happy with the qualifying session.

"I had a pretty good run in both Q1 and Q2 -- managing to avoid the traffic and my quick lap in Q2 was pretty neat so I don't think I could have found more time. In fact, I almost set identical laptimes in Q1 and Q2.

"So I'm pretty happy with where I'm starting and hopefully we can come away with some points tomorrow. It's always a fun race, a special place to be and we will be pushing hard to maximise the strategy and get a strong result," said the German.

Di Resta, who clocked 1:16.062 in Q1 and 1:15.718 in Q2, though admitted he will have a tough task to collect points on Sunday.

"I felt pretty happy with the balance of the car during FP2 on Thursday, but unfortunately it didn't carry over for qualifying. We haven't changed much on the car, but I was struggling with the rear and with traction.

"So I'm not as far up the grid as I would like to be and it leaves us with a hard task tomorrow, especially because it's so difficult to overtake here. But we also know that Monaco can be an unpredictable race and I hope the strategy can help us fight back tomorrow," he said.