27/06/2010
NEWS STORY
The Force India F1 Team further added to its 2010 championship point total in today's European Grand Prix, with Adrian Sutil claiming a hard-fought sixth position. Tonio Liuzzi put in a competitive performance however finished the race just out of the points in 13th.
Both Adrian and Tonio made good starts off the line and were moving up the field until the safety car period on lap nine. Adrian was one of the first to pit when the safety car was deployed as a result of Webber and Kovalainen's accident and managed to make up five positions to eighth. He then overtook Buemi for seventh on lap 38, which became sixth when Kobayashi eventually pitted in the late stages of the race.
Tonio was not so fortunate to leapfrog into the top ten in his stop. To try to take advantage of the safety car period, he too pitted as soon as he could, but he lost a couple of vital seconds while waiting for the completion of Adrian's tyre change. He gained a couple of positions to rejoin in 14th and climbed up a further position after a long battle with Felipe Massa.
Adrian Sutil: 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. 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.
Tonio Liuzzi: 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. 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.
Dr Vijay Mallya, chairman and team principal: With street racing anything can happen and that's what we saw today. We took advantage of the safety car period for Adrian, which moved him up into the points and then he did a great job to bring the car home sixth. Tonio was unlucky not to be able to benefit in the same way, however he still drove a very gutsy race and again demonstrated that in race trim the car is very competitive. We've come away from the weekend with some more points and I think sixth is a good reflection on where we are right now in the field.