Nico Hulkenberg: Force India still up against it despite good debut

Delays in the building of the VJM08 have meant his team's 2015 challenger only hit the track at Barcelona on Friday - giving the team just two more days of running before the Australian Grand Prix.

Despite getting an encouraging 77 laps under his belt on Friday, Hulkenberg knows that there is little chance for the team to make up for such a late start with its car.

"The reliability seems to be quite OK because out of the box we did 77 laps in an afternoon," he said.

"That is a good job and quite remarkable.

"But we have a lot of work in front of us and are playing catch-up."

When asked how much he thinks the team will pay the price for its late start, Hulkenberg said: "I guess we will only find out when we are in Melbourne. It is hard to tell where you are in theory.

"It is not ideal. Having more time with the car would be better, but the situation is as it is right now.

"We have a good crew together and usually we learn quite quickly.

"In this case we have to learn quickly and see what we can push ourselves into in Melbourne."

Hulkenberg thinks that it is too early to judge how much of a step forward the new car is over its predecessor.

"Winter testing is with cooler track temperatures and it is always difficult to tell," he explained.

"I can feel some areas are better, and some areas are quite similar. So it is difficult to say so far.

"From a pure running point of view it was very good. Straight out of the box, not one issue, the power train and car was pretty good."