06/11/2010
NEWS STORY
Unsettled weather and changeable track conditions conspired to produce a frustrating qualifying session for the Force India F1 Team in Brazil today. Tonio Liuzzi made the grade for Q2 but struggled with grip throughout the session and will start 17th, while Adrian Sutil was eliminated in the first segment, qualifying in 18th.
Adrian Sutil: I had an untidy Q1 today. On the first run I lost out when I came up to Tonio just as he had gone off and that was probably when the track was at its best. Then the grip was just not there on the last outing. The track came up a little bit at the end but then the rain started and I had a lot of graining on the tyres at that point and couldn't do a reasonable lap time. With the penalty we are starting quite far down the field, but I'm definitely not giving up. We've got a very strong race pace and our pit calls in changeable weather this year have been good. We've achieved too much this year to let ourselves go at the last jump so I'm massively motivated to go out and give it everything.
Tonio Liuzzi: It was a strange session as we were really positive about the car in the morning and everything was working very well. The car seemed balanced and we didn't change very much from FP3 to qualifying as we were pretty confident we could be very close to Q3. But then in the afternoon the car seemed to lose grip and we were really struggling in braking, particularly in sector two where the car was sliding all over the track. We tried but in the end we couldn't get higher than P17. But we are fighters, and we just come back stronger when things are hard.
Otmar Szafnauer, chief operating officer: This was obviously not the session we were looking for, or what we were expecting. But as we know the race can be unpredictable. Last year at this very track we started P3 and didn't finish, at the last race in Korea Tonio started P17 and finished sixth: there's still everything to play for. We are going to go away tonight, refocus and look at every possible scenario so we're well prepared for anything that might come in tomorrow's race. That is going to be the key to doing well.
To check out our Interlagos qualifying gallery, click here