Paul di Resta says making Q3 is the target for Force India in Australian GP qualifying

The majority of the teams had their Friday programmes disrupted by a rain-hit second practice session at Melbourne. But di Resta said that the understanding his outfit gained of the new VJM05 during pre-season testing and morning practice had helped negate the effects of the lost dry track time.

When asked by AUTOSPORT if there was any reason why Force India would not be in the mix for Q3, the British driver replied: "Not at the moment. We are ready as best as we can be should it happen.

"P2 was the same for everyone up and down the pitlane - not really reflective at all. I don't think anyone has a clue what is going on.

"[Because of that] it was difficult to learn a lot. Basically your winter work is your driving force at the moment, and hopefully your impression from FP1 was enough.

"We got a reasonable read so at the moment, with the package we have, we're relatively comfortable heading into Saturday morning. Whether conditions change and throw anything else up is another thing."

Di Resta added that he had still been able to gather some information from the second practice.

"I got a bit of an impression - we made some changes going into P2 and I think they worked well. We have progressed the car on slightly more from where we started," he said.

"[We need to get through] quite a lot in FP3, and I think a lot of people up and down the paddock a lot of people will be out there quite quickly.

"The big thing is running with high fuel and seeing the [tyre] degradation. It will be quite interesting on Sunday to see if being aggressive reflects in the final result.

"It's never a negative to be in the top 12, but there are a lot of people who have moved on as well as us. We would certainly like to be there tomorrow rather than today."