18/04/2010
NEWS STORY
A thrilling Chinese Grand Prix for the Force India F1 Team's Adrian Sutil today, with the German racing strongly in the top ten as the changeable rainy conditions created a lottery for tyres and position. Unfortunately, Adrian just missed a points' scoring position by seven tenths of a second and crossed the line in 11th place. Tonio Liuzzi's race ended extremely prematurely after he retired from the race on lap one in an incident in the fourth corner.
Adrian Sutil: It was a real strategy race this time. At times it was difficult to know which was the best tyre to be on, as it would rain and then dry and then rain again. We started on the dry tyre and then pitted for inters under the safety car on lap one. At this point it was the right decision as it was raining quite a bit and it was easy for me to overtake a lot of cars. Then it eased and we switched to the dries for a few laps but then there was more rain.On the second set of inters we put on on lap 19 I was able to fight with the top guys, including Lewis, Sebastian and Felipe for quite a few laps, but then the tyres grained up and I had to pit again. I lost a couple of positions in this final stop and that was what dropped me back to 13th. Although we could close to within a second of Michael I just ran out of laps to get past. But that's how it is, sometimes you win in this type of race and sometimes it just doesn't go your way.
Tonio Liuzzi: Unfortunately I had a problem warming up the brakes on the formation lap due to the cold and the rain and then when I went into corner four on the first lap and braked, the rear completely locked and I lost control of the car and went off. It was a shame as we had had a really good start and gained three positions in just the first corner and it could have been a very interesting race, particularly with how the conditions panned out. But that's how it is, it didn't go our way this time, but we will keep pushing for the next races.
Dr Vijay Mallya, chairman and team principal: It is disappointing to see our run of points end and not to have been able to make more of these conditions, but that's sometimes what happens in this type of conditions: it can become a bit of a lottery. There are still some positives from the weekend - Adrian again proved his wet weather prowess and also that we are genuine top ten. We've got some work to do now that Renault has opened up a sizeable advantage but we have some developments in the pipeline and the season has a long way to run. We'll regroup and come back strongly in Spain I'm sure.