Abu Dhabi GP: Nico Hulkenberg says Force India needs to progress

The German driver, who has finished in the points in the last three grands prix, was 13th quickest in second practice on Friday, having finished 12th in the first session.

The Force India driver admitted it was still hard to judge where his team was, but said his car balance still needed improving.

"I think it's still difficult to know where our performance level is right now, but we probably need to raise our game and improve a bit overnight if we want to challenge for points," said Hulkenberg.

"The balance is not perfect just yet so we need to work tonight to get the car closer to the sweet spot.

"Apart from that we got through the programme, collected all the tyre data and so it was a fairly normal Friday."

Team-mate Paul di Resta, who did not run in first practice as he was replaced by Jules Bianchi, was 15th quickest and said there was still a lot of work to do to extract the best from his car.

"I think we learned quite a lot this evening, but there's a lot of work ahead of us to understand where we stand and where we can improve," he said.

"This track is all about grip in the low and medium speed corners and that's where we need to focus tonight.

"In terms of tyres we collected a lot of data today so we will be working hard to make sure we get them in the right operating window for qualifying and the race."