Formula 1 news

Sutil: Abu Dhabi 'a shame' for Force India

Adrian Sutil was disappointed to have rounded off a strong season for Force India in disappointing fashion at Yas Marina on Sunday. Dogged by brake problems for much of practice, the German dropped back one place from his grid position to finish last of the runners in the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

Although team-mate Vitantonio Liuzzi may have managed to jump up to 15th spot courtesy of Lewis Hamilton's retirement, Abu Dhabi was a second-rate weekend for the Silverstone team, which saw both cars eliminated from qualifying at the earliest possible point on Saturday.

"I was a little bit disappointed," Sutil explained. "The car was much better than we actually did but we lost it all in the qualifying; we struggled with the tyres and we made the wrong decision - even in the race here I saw how much we had lost because, on the Medium tyre, I improved my time by one second to the qualifying time, which is absolutely not usual!"

With a bad start resulting in lost positions, Sutil's engineers adjusted his strategy to one of two pit-stops as their driver lowered lap times. "It gave me a good race pace and a good feeling for the end of the race," Adrian continued.

"Overall, it was a shame for both of us because I think we could have had a much better weekend, but it was another one to learn from. In the end, I was happy to go through the race and get some useful information."

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