Formula One news

Force India hoped for better

The Force India Formula One Team was today desperately close to achieving its objective of entering the second segment of qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, the opening round of the 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship. After a strong performance throughout the weekend, both Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil were just under a second from putting the VJM01 into the top 16, and will start in 17th and 19th respectively.

Sutil commented, "It was not such an easy qualifying as the track conditions were quite different to this morning. The general grip level was lower and I struggled with some understeer with new tyres, but the second run was OK, even though the balance was not great. On my last lap I felt it was going well until the second sector but when I got to the quick left-right chicane in sector three I got a lot of understeer and went wide on the exit. The car jumped and I couldn't control it and spun. It is a bit sad as maybe I could have caught Bourdais, but we were very close to second qualifying and maybe in Malaysia we could still make that little step. But we are there and are closer than last year, which is a little success already."

Fisichella commented, "Seventeenth, just one place behind the top 16 and Q2, so it is a bit disappointing considering the weekend so far. In the last part of my quickest lap, there was a yellow flag but there was also a lot of graining on the tyres and I lost at least three tenths. But we know we are there and are improving. The team has made a good effort so far - we know we still have a lot of work to do but we are going in the right direction."

Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer added, "A very disappointing qualifying session for us. Unfortunately on his final lap Adrian lost the car and sadly that yellow flag meant Giancarlo had to back off. The small delay was enough to not get through to Q2, but as we showed this morning, we have a car that is very close with the midfield group and the odd tenth can make a big difference. We know we have got a competitive car relative to others so we have to look to pick up more places tomorrow."

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