Force India only 1.3secs from the fastest time
The Force India Formula One Team experienced its most competitive qualifying performance so far this season in Valencia, with Giancarlo Fisichella just 1.3secs from the fastest time of the qualifying session, and Adrian Sutil just 0.7secs behind. The duo will however start the race in 18th and 20th positions respectively as the 2008 F1 field grows ever-closer.
Giancarlo put together an optimum lap on his final qualifying run of the day to outqualify the Honda of Barrichello and just miss the cut for Q2 by 0.4secs. Adrian meanwhile made three runs on the Bridgestone Potenza supersoft tyres, however traffic on his final lap cost him some time and relegated him to the rear of the grid.
The team will now use this improvement in performance as a springboard for tomorrow's 57 lap race.
Adrian Sutil: "The first run was OK, the track was improving and the grip level was getting better with every lap. On the second run I had a good lap, except for a small mistake in Turn 14 where I lost two to three tenths, but it was still not bad. Then on the last run I had some problems with the traffic on my out lap and couldn't warm up the tyres, so they weren't ready for the first couple of corners so I locked up in the first corner. That's why I couldn't improve my lap time, which was for sure disappointing as the final run is always the quickest and I couldn't improve my time. So last on the grid, let's see for tomorrow."
Giancarlo Fisichella: "I really tried my hardest on that lap. I think I got the maximum out of the car and the best time we could do, and in the end we are only 1.3secs from the fastest time of the session. It just shows how close everything is now, but I don't think we could have done anything more. It was a fantastic effort from the team and the car felt good. It could be an unpredictable race tomorrow, so let's see how it goes."
Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer: "I think a good effort from the team, and Giancarlo got the maximum out of the car in qualifying. It's the first race with our quick shift box and I think we have clearly taken a step forward in competitiveness and it's nice to start out-qualifying some of the works' cars in the progress. I am very proud of the team, now we are just 1.3secs from the fastest time of the day and really pushing to move into the midfield. For tomorrow's race we know there will be a lot of incidents and potentially a lot of safety cars, but we know our race pace is normally better than our qualifying pace so I think we can genuinely race with the midfield and look for a potential opportunity to score."
