Force India secured their fourth top-ten finish of 2010 as Adrian Sutil finished fourth to add 6 points to the team’s tally.
The German got off to a good start from the sixth row of the grid and held off the Renault of Robert Kubica throughout the race to finish seventh: “[It was] a very good race for the team,” said Sutil “with a good pace that showed again we are up there in the midfield really fighting for position and points.
“I had a great start, moving from 11th to 8th, and was not that far behind the Ferrari of Massa for most of the race. I had to push quite a lot throughout as for about 40 laps Robert [Kubica] was quite close behind and there was no time to relax.
“In the end seventh position is a great success for the team. It’s more points and keeps that momentum going. I can’t wait to get to Monaco now, one of my favourite tracks.”
Teammate Tonio Liuzzi missed out on points, however. After a poor qualifying yesterday, the Italian could only finish one place above his grid position in 15th. He stopped on the final lap of the race when his VJM03 lost power through the middle sector.
Liuzzi was understandably frustrated after the race: “It was a difficult race starting from so far behind. We had a decent start but we struggled with understeer and then snap oversteer on the first stint with the softer tyres.
“I lost a little time getting away from the pit stop but then the balance with the hard tyres was getting better. By that point though we had got caught in the traffic because of the faster cars coming by. Once they had all gone and we got some clean laps we could show a decent pace so we can be quite happy at this aspect.
“Ultimately the points were too far away as we had already lost so much time at the beginning, but that’s racing and we have to sit and understand what happened to the whole weekend as it’s been quite difficult all round. I’m now looking forward to Monaco in just a few days’ time.“
Vijay Mallya, the Force India team principal, was pleased with another haul of points, and thinks Liuzzi will be back in the points in the next race: “It’s been a positive race for Force India as we’ve added to our total and made it points from four out of five races so far this year. This was one of our aims; to be consistent and score in as many races as possible. Adrian had a faultless race and kept calm under a lot of pressure from our closest rivals, Renault, and he thoroughly deserved those points.
“For Tonio the weekend has been difficult from the start, but he did as much as he could from his starting position. He’ll move onto Monaco, where he has a great record, hungry to get back into the points. There’s only a week to go now and everything to look forward to.“
