Race report

Points for Sahara Force India team at Barcelona

Points by Paul Di Resta, who finished behing Mercedes' Rosberg, and a disappointing pit stop for Sutil

Paul Di Resta scored six points for Sahara Force India in today’s Spanish Grand Prix. Teammate Adrian Sutil’s race was compromised by a slow pit stop, which denied him a chance to join Paul in the points.

P7 Paul Di Resta VJM06-04
Tyre strategy: Used medium, new hard, used medium, used medium, new hard

Paul di Resta, Sahara Force India VJM06

Photo by: XPB Images

Paul: “We said before the race that seventh would be a good result and towards the end I was even fighting for sixth. So we can take a lot of positives from the weekend because this is a track that has traditionally not suited our car. It was a great effort by the team to get through to Q3 yesterday and come away with a seventh place today. The result shows the consistency that we have had since the start of the year and that we can perform each weekend. There’s more to come too, because there is more we can do to optimise the car with the new parts we introduced here, but this is definitely a big result for us.”

P13 Adrian Sutil VJM06-03
Tyre strategy: Used medium, new medium, new hard, new hard, used medium

Adrian: “It’s extremely disappointing to come away empty handed from this race because we were so quick today. My start was very good and I went around the outside of the first corner, which worked well because I was up in eighth by the end of the first lap. It was all going to plan until the first pit stop when there was an issue and I lost so much time. The team told me to switch the engine off while they sorted the problem, but it cost me the chance of points. For the rest of the race it was a case of pushing as much as possible because you never know what can happen. It’s frustrating, but you have to accept these things. Hopefully it will not happen again.”

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal
“It’s rewarding to come away with another seventh place for Paul and maintain our fifth place in the championship. Paul drove a very strong race and the calls from the pit wall kept him in the battle for sixth with Rosberg right until the last lap. On the other side of the garage there was bad luck for Adrian, who lost a considerable amount of time during his first pit stop when the right rear wheel nut cross-threaded. It was very unfortunate because he had an amazing start, moving up five places on the opening lap. His race pace was very impressive once again and he would surely have scored well today. As a team we will focus on the positives and head to Monaco confident that we can deliver a similar level of performance and get both cars in the points.”

Sahara Force India Formula One Team