Spanish GP: Force India qualifying report

Adrian Sutil (car 20, VJM01/02):
FP3: 19th 1:22.689 (21 laps)
Q1: 20th 1:23.224 (8 laps)

Giancarlo Fisichella (car 21, VJM01/05):
FP1: 18th 1:22.466 (22 laps)
Q1: 19th 1:22.516 (11 laps)

The Force India Formula One Team will start tomorrow's Spanish Grand Prix from 19th and 20th positions after a difficult qualifying session that failed to deliver on the team's earlier weekend promise.

The morning free practice session gave a hint as to how close the Qualifying would be, with the top 20 covered by under 1.5secs and from position 10 to 20 by just six tenths. After a reasonable practice, Giancarlo Fisichella however struggled with reduced grip levels on his qualifying runs and was disappointed to miss the cut for Q2.

Adrian Sutil was similarly frustrated with his qualifying as his second flying lap was interrupted by traffic and, on what was to be his final run of the day, he reported a brake problem.

Giancarlo will start in 19th position, with Adrian just behind in 20th, but with a strong race pace the team will look to make amends for this disappointing Qualifying session.

Adrian Sutil (car 20)

'I was unlucky. The first run was OK, I did a 23.1 that was quite good for a first lap. On the second run the grip level was much better and I had a good feeling, but then into turn three there was a car coming out of the pits. I lost all the downforce and got some huge understeer and basically had to lift off and break up the lap as there was no point driving it after that. On my final run, again I had a very good first sector, but then my brake disc seemed to develop a problem and it was quite difficult to get the car to slow down for corners. It's very disappointing as I thought it could have been one of my best qualifying this season as I feel good in the car, and we looked good until this point. Let's hope for more tomorrow.'

Giancarlo Fisichella (car 21)

'I had some problems on my first run with reduced grip and understeer, so the obvious way to go was to do two timed laps on the first run, but it did not prove to be the best you solution in this case. It is a bit disappointing after yesterday. It was difficult to make the tyres work properly so now we will see what will happen in the race. We've had some strong performances so let's see.'

Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer

'Qualifying and really the whole of today has been very disappointing for the team. Adrian only got his first run in on a dirty track and then had traffic on his second run, before a brake problem on his last outing, which meant he couldn't set a representative time. Giancarlo was slightly more fortunate in that he got in some reasonable runs, but the car hasn't had the same grip we had yesterday and basically, fuel corrected, we were about a second slower than we were able to be yesterday. It is very difficult to understand why we have struggled so much with the tyres today, but we have to work on it tonight and look to have a better race tomorrow.'

-credit: force india