Bitter disappointment for Force India
The Force India F1 Team missed out on scoring points for only the second time this season in today's German Grand Prix. With Adrian starting from P19 and Tonio P22 the race was always going to be an uphill battle, and the mount proved too high during the 67 lap race. Tonio came home in 16th position and Adrian just behind in 17th.
Despite missing out on points Force India maintains its sixth position in the constructors' championship.
Adrian Sutil (car 14): "What can we say, it's been a very disappointing weekend. The first lap I had some contact with Tonio and lost some positions. It was always our strategy that, if after the start I had not made up places, I would pit on the first lap to change to the prime tyres and make up positions when other cars stopped later on. It was a good plan as you have nothing to lose when you are that far down, but there was some confusion in the stop. Tonio had radioed to say he was coming in for a front wing change and as we both arrived at the same time the tyre sets got mixed up and then I had to come in and pit again to get the correct set. Once they were on I got going and I could get quite far up the field but then I had to stop when the set went off. This weekend we've just not been quick enough but we feel it's just a blip and not anything too serious - at some races you just don't run well, so it's best to write it off and look forward to the next races."
Tonio Liuzzi (car 15): "It's been a pretty disappointing race weekend overall. I had one contact on the first lap and we believed we had damaged the front wing, so I came to the pits for a change but there was a mix-up in the stop with the tyres so I had to come back in again. It was a shame as I had had a good first lap until that point and afterwards we had a really strong race pace. It was always going to be tough, but the pace we showed was the same as the top ten runners. We have to look at these positives and look forward to the next race in Budapest."
Otmar Szafnauer, chief operating officer: "Of course we are disappointed with the result today as we believed we could have finished much further up than we ultimately did. It was a case of cause-and-effect - one bad thing led to another. We had some issues in practice, which meant qualifying was not ideal, and in trying to be aggressive at the start we had a coming together, which in turn led to the confusion in the stops. We will draw a line under it and focus on the new developments we have coming and we can take away some positives - we ran at a strong pace on both cars when they were fighting for position and we ran reliably in the race yet again."
