I'm eyeing points in Montreal

Montreal, Canada: Saturday, June 11, 2011

Paul delivered a very impressive qualifying for tomorrow's Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal; he will line up 11th on the grid after posting a fastest lap of 1min 14.752secs, and only narrowly missed out on a place in the top 10 shootout. 

Importantly though, he also saved a new set of tyres for the race.
This is Paul's first experience of the super-fast Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, which sits on an island in the middle of the St Lawrence River, but once again he outqualified his more experienced Force India team-mate Adrian Sutil who starts 14th.

“We were very close to making it through to Q3 today," Paul explained, "but in the end we had to settle for P11. Maybe the tyre strategy we opted for was not optimal for qualifying, but I’ve managed to save a set of new options for the race so hopefully that will help us tomorrow.

"I also lost a couple of tenths at the second chicane on my final lap and without this I could maybe have squeezed into Q3. But to be honest there wasn’t much more to come.

"P11 is a good place to start from and it’s probably better to be on the clean side of the track. We’ve been competitive here since the start of the weekend and I’m sure we can have a good race tomorrow and hopefully score some points.”

And Paul's performance was praised by Force India's deputy team principal Robery Fernley: "The high-speed layout of this track always seems to suit our cars and once again this year we’ve been running in or close to the top ten in most of the sessions.

"Paul has done a good job of learning the track and has steadily built up his pace throughout practice. He only narrowly missed out on making it through to Q3, which is a great effort considering this is his first visit here. Overall I think we can be pleased with our showing today, which leaves us well place to bring home a strong result tomorrow.”