Adrian Sutil was relieved to score points in Istanbul, following the issues which Force India had encountered throughout the weekend.
Sutil himself had been forced out of the third practice session with technical issues and had never entirely been happy with the set up of the car. Despite this, the German managed to capitalise on Sebastian Vettel and Vitaly Petrov’s misfortunes to finish ninth and take home two valuable points.
Tonio Liuzzi also recovered well from his lowly qualifying position to finish thirteenth and said afterwards that he had been happy with the pace of the VJM03.
Adrian Sutil – 9th:It was a good race in the end, I enjoyed it. I had a good start and first lap and the only real downside was the pit stop when we lost a few seconds at a crucial time. That’s where I lost two positions and had to fight back past Kobayashi. I was quite lucky then to benefit from the tussle between Webber and Vettel and then Alonso and Petrov to make up some places. Ninth position after the weekend we’ve had is the most we could have done. OK, we probably lost a position due to the time lost in the stop but at this stage any points are good. We still have some developments coming for the next race and our next task is to use the SRW on my car – and once we get these done I think it will be looking really good for the next few races.
Tonio Liuzzi – 13th: It was a long race, but we knew we would have a difficult one after the qualifying yesterday. We realised that we are struggling with the car and I still don’t have the grip. I tried to push hard at the beginning with the strategy but in the end we knew it would be a big job as when you don’t have the right grip it’s tough. We finished 13th on the road, but the pace was not too bad, particularly at the end. We now need to work back at the factory to understand why it’s happening so I can get back in the points again.
Dr Vijay Mallya, chairman and team principal:After the various issues we’ve had over the weekend, it’s very satisfying to come away from Turkey with some more points to our name. Adrian drove a great race and richly deserved his points today. Tonio has had a harder weekend and we really need to understand why he’s not getting the grip he needs to be able to regain his earlier season form. That will be the focus for next week so when we get to Canada we can have a chance at another double points finish. We’ve also got some work to do on our SRW and when we do, I hope we’ll be mixing it again with the top end.
