Formula One news

Force India encouraged despite grid positions

The Force India Formula One Team was encouraged that Giancarlo Fisichella was just 1.3secs off the pace in today's qualifying, although he and team mate Adrian Sutil will start the race in 18th and 20th positions.

"The first run was OK, the track was improving and the grip level was getting better with every lap," said Sutil. "On the second run I had a good lap, except for a small mistake in Turn 14 where I lost two to three tenths, but it was still not bad. Then on the last run I had some problems with the traffic on my out lap and couldn't warm up the tyres, so they weren't ready for the first couple of corners so I locked up in the first corner. That's why I couldn't improve my lap time, which was for sure disappointing as the final run is always the quickest and I couldn't improve my time. So last on the grid, let's see for tomorrow."

Giancarlo Fisichella commented, "I really tried my hardest on that lap. I think I got the maximum out of the car and the best time we could do, and in the end we are only 1.3secs from the fastest time of the session. It just shows how close everything is now, but I don't think we could have done anything more. It was a fantastic effort from the team and the car felt good. It could be an unpredictable race tomorrow, so let's see how it goes."

Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer added, "I think a good effort from the team, and Giancarlo got the maximum out of the car in qualifying. It's the first race with our quick shift box and I think we have clearly taken a step forward in competitiveness and it's nice to start out-qualifying some of the works' cars in the progress. I am very proud of the team, now we are just 1.3secs from the fastest time of the day and really pushing to move into the midfield. For tomorrow's race we know there will be a lot of incidents and potentially a lot of safety cars, but we know our race pace is normally better than our qualifying pace so I think we can genuinely race with the midfield and look for a potential opportunity to score."

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