Grand Prix of Europe ForceIndia Race Report

Adrian Sutil converted his strong qualifying  position into points today as he raced to a  well-earned ninth place in the European  Grand Prix. Teammate Paul Di Resta finished  the race in P14.

P9 Adrian Sutil, VJM04/04 Tyre strategy: Used option, new option, used option, new prime     Adrian:  “To finish ninth feels great and I’m pleased that we’ve  managed to get the maximum from the car through the whole weekend.  I made a good start: jumping ahead of Heidfeld and was then  able to keep up with Schumacher in the first stint. I pushed  hard but there was no opportunity to get by him. In the middle  of the race I had some clear track, good race pace and we were up  to P8. After the final stop, I came out behind Alguersuari, who was  doing a two-stop race. I tried all I could to overtake him, but the DRS  zone did not make overtaking very easy and I had to settle for P9.  The car felt really nice to drive today and I’m really happy for the  whole team with this result.”     P14 Paul Di Resta, VJM04/02 Tyre strategy: Used option, used option, used option, new prime     Paul: “I’m not sure that we got the strategy quite right today.  There were a couple of laps in the first stint where my tyres  had gone off and we didn’t stop early enough. We made up for  that during the second stop, when I jumped Heidfeld and Barrichello,  but I lost out again at my final stop. It’s tough when the tyres go off  because it costs you around two and a half seconds per lap, which is a  lot when the fight in the middle of the pack is so close. Even  without those issues it would have been tough to score points today  because overtaking was more difficult that I thought it would be,  even with the DRS zone. So it hasn’t been the best of weekends,  but I’ll put that behind me and look forward to my home race at Silverstone.”     Dr. Vijay Mallya, Chairman and Team Principal “The two points scored by Adrian are a welcome reward after  a very strong weekend for us. The car has worked well from the  start of practice and Adrian has not put a foot wrong. The only  frustration is that we were unable to contain the Toro Rosso of  Alguersuari, who managed to jump ahead of Adrian with a  two-stop strategy. Paul once again delivered a fighting drive,  but was unlucky with the way the strategy unfolded. It was a  reminder that even stopping one lap too late can be very costly  in terms of track position. So we leave Valencia pleased to  be back in the points and determined to carry our good  form into Silverstone, a local circuit for our factory and a race  that everybody enjoys.”