Adrian Sutil added to Force India's 2010 points haul after his battling on track sixth place finish survived a five second post race penalty.
His teammate was not so fortunate, finishing 13th on track, before the stewards pushed him down to 16th in their raft of penalties.
Despite both missing the top ten in qualifying both drivers made good starts and were moving up through the field when the safety car was scrambled on lap nine. The pair pitted together (their hasty racing back to the pits the reason for the post-race penalties), though Liuzzi was forced to queue behind his German teammate in the pitlane – losing vital time under the safety car.
Lucky enough to be the of the VMJ02 into the pits Sutil leapt five places to eighth, from where he was able to make up a few places once racing restarted, passing Sebastien Buemi on track and inheriting another spot when Kamui Kobayashi made his eleventh hour pitstop.
“It was an interesting race for me and a very good result in the end: from 13th to sixth, it’s pretty amazing for us, one of the best races so far this season,” Sutil said. “We made the call to come into the pits at the right time – when the safety car went out I was in the last sector and could go in the pits straight away and then moved up the order when the front guys came in. Then I could pass Buemi on track and in the end it was sixth position. I think we did everything right today and it’s a very positive result for the team to keep the points coming in.”
“It was a reasonable race considering we knew it would be difficult to score points because of the starting position and there aren’t many overtaking spots,” Liuzzi adds. “It was a shame we couldn’t make more of the safety car as Adrian did but basically we came in at the same time and as he was ahead on the road he was stopped in front of me and I had to wait for him to finish and then I got blocked by Petrov in the pitlane.”
“That basically compromised my race. It’s quite disappointing as yesterday we had good pace and we just couldn’t get the most out of it in qualifying. From this perspective we showed points were possible and we can look forward to getting some more in Silverstone.”
