Good to be in F1 again - Sutil

F1 Test, Barcelona, Circuit de Catalunya

Sahara Force India continued testing in Barcelona as Adrian Sutil returned to an F1 cockpit for the first time in more than a year to help Force India with its winter testing programme. Jules Bianchi will be in the car for the final day of running tomorrow.

Adrian Sutil: “It was a good day and nice to be back in a Formula One car once again. We started off by doing some aero work this morning when the track was quite cold and green. Later on we moved to some performance work and tyre testing, and feeling all the different Pirelli compounds was something quite new for me. It’s been almost a year and a half since I last drove, but I found that I was able to get back up to speed quickly and set some good times before lunch. In the afternoon we did some long runs and also introduced the hard compound tyre, which feels quite different to the soft and mediums.”

Jakob Andreasen, Chief Race Engineer: “It has been a long time since Adrian last worked with the team, but he did an excellent job of getting used to the car and was on the pace straight away. His feedback was good and it was interesting to hear the thoughts of a driver who has not been in a Formula One car for a while. He was very detailed with his comments and provided some good direction for us. The programme was similar to the previous couple of days with aero work, long runs and performance work using the hard, medium and soft tyres. For tomorrow the weather forecast is looking uncertain, but we will design our technical programme to be ready for every eventuality.”