Di Resta and Sutil lament lack of grip
Qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza saw Adrian Sutil qualify in P14 ahead of Paul Di Resta in P16. Both Sahara Force India drivers continued to struggle with a lack of grip and weren't able to do as well as is usually the case at this track.
Adrian Sutil, VJM06-03, 14th: “A tough qualifying today. We made some changes overnight, but they didn’t really show much improvement during final practice, which was strange. So there was not much we could do ahead of qualifying apart from change a few more things to try and help the balance. The car felt a bit better for qualifying, but we are still too far away from where we should be. My lap in Q2 was not too bad and P14 was the maximum today. Scoring points tomorrow is our aim and although it’s a difficult task, we will do our best.”
Paul Di Resta, VJM06-04, 16th: “It’s been a mixed day with the brake disc failure this morning, which cost us some track time and meant we headed into qualifying with a car set-up that was far from optimised. The guys did a fantastic job to get the car ready in time, but ultimately we didn’t have the performance to do any better than P16. It’s fair to say that we have struggled more with our one-lap pace here, so hopefully we can be more competitive in race conditions. There’s also talk of changeable weather so maybe we can do something with the strategy to move forward in the race.”
Dr Vijay Mallya, Team Principal & Managing Director: “Monza has traditionally been a happy hunting ground for Sahara Force India, but we’ve not been on the pace this weekend. Yesterday we saw both drivers unable to find a good balance and struggling with the car under braking, and despite our best efforts we’ve not totally solved those issues. I think that showed in today’s qualifying session where both cars were missing grip. Starting from P14 and P16 means we’ve got a bit of a fight on our hands tomorrow, but we never give up and will try our best to come away with some points.”
* Adrian Sutil was later handed a 3-place grid penalty for impeding Lewis Hamilton during qualifying. This means Paul Di Resta moves up one place to 15th while Sutil will start from 17th
