Sutil in top ten (Force India race review)

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Adrian Sutil finished in the points for the sixth race in a row and is now just one point between Michael Schumacher in the world championship.

But Vitantonio Liuzzi finished out of the points after collecting a penalty in qualifying.

Adrian SutilVitantonio Liuzzi
Qualifying position1120
Qualifying time comparison (Q2)1’31.399 (-0.309)1’31.708
Race position811
Average race lap1’38.445 (-0.029)1’38.474
Laps52/5252/52
Pit stops11

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Adrian Sutil

Sutil was baffled by his inability to improve his lap time after switching to the soft tyre in Q2. That left him 11th on the grid.

He started on hard tyres with everyone on front of him on softs. Although he was able to stay fairly close to the cars in front the tyres wore out too quickly for him to be able to stay out much later than his rivals. Indeed, his lap 17 pit stop was earlier than that of some drivers who started behind him on soft tyres – such as Jenson Button and Nico Hulkenberg:

It was fun and quite an interesting race. We started on the hard tyre as we wanted to try a long stint at the start but it was not really possible as the tyres didn’t behave well at the beginning. I didn’t have enough grip on the car so we came in to do an early stop and go on the soft tyre, so really the opposite strategy to everyone else.
Adrian Sutil

He made an excellent move on Michael Schumacher to take seventh place after the safety car came in, putting two wheels over the grass on the entry to Brooklands.

But he lost the place to Sebastian Vettel two laps from home having kept the Red Bull driver at bay for several laps. He wasn’t impressed at being barged aside by Vetel at The Loop:

It was good racing and I defended my position well against Vettel until the final lap, but then he just seemed to drive into me and I lost the racing line and had to move over. Otherwise I don’t think he would have got past me.
Adrian Sutil

Compare Adrian Sutil’s form against his team mate in 2010

Vitantonio Liuzzi

Was given a grid penalty for impeding Nico Hulkenberg during qualifying. Liuzzi came out of the pits ahead of the Williams driver and failed to let him past even though Hulkenberg was already on a flying lap.

He lined up 20th on the grid and it took until lap ten for him to get past both the Lotuses. But he gained several places through the pit stops and kept Fernando Alonso behind for much of the second half of the race. The pair banged wheels as Alonso finally got through but it left the Ferrari driver with a puncture.

Liuzzi eventually finished just outside the points in 11th:

We need to understand what happened in the first part of the race as with the hard tyres we had unbelievable understeer.

I couldn’t cope with the high speed corners and was really struggling to keep positions and a strong pace. We have to work it out as on the softer tyres we were performing very well and finished just a few hundredths from the points. Definitely without this issue we could have been in the points so we’ll look at it and understand.

We also still have an issue with the speed in the race but it was a great race overall and I always pushed 100% as you never know what can happen at the end.
Vitantonio Liuzzi

Compare Vitantonio Liuzzi’s form against his team mate in 2010

2010 British Grand Prix

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    13 comments on “Sutil in top ten (Force India race review)”

    1. Sutil certainly one of my drivers of the race. Not so much the brilliant move on Schuey, but the outwitting of Vettle.

      Vettles car was so superior to Sutils, he should have breezed past him, but he just couldn’t live with him, best display of deffensive driving this year, impossible with silly proximity wings as well. Magnificent drive an robbed of a place before the end.

      1. best display of defensive driving this year, impossible with silly proximity wings as well

        Well said.

        1. It took Vettel 3 corners to overtake Schumi and 9 laps to overtake Sutil. That says something about the improvemnt both Sutil and Force India have made.

          1. Hamilton couldn’t get past him at all at Malaysia earlier in the year, in terms of defensive drivers he may be one of the best on the grid.

            1. the Force India is very fast in a straight line and so it is hard to catch up with them on the straights.

          2. Even if FI and Sutil have improved they should be no where near the league of the RB6.

            Sutil was very impressive even if he had that Merc engine, he still had to put the work in.

            1. That’s true Sato113 but the RB6 is so quick through the corners and picking up a tow is possible. I do think it is still pretty hard to overtake but Sutil did very well. He never really left Vettel with much chance.

      2. Sutil did really show what he can do with a decent car there. It was impressive.

    2. Yeah.. Sutil’s driving this year has been brilliant and his overtaking MSC in the last lap last race was great. Even Lewis couldn’t do anything stuck past Sutil. Enjoyed his defense eventhough I am a Vettel’s fan.

    3. I’ve noticed a few comments about Vettel driving into people and Patrickl pointed it out not so long ago. This season I’ve counted at least 4 incidents including this

      “It was good racing and I defended my position well against Vettel until the final lap, but then he just seemed to drive into me ”

      He’s put in some brilliant speed this year but it is interesting that this comment keeps occuring.

    4. So much praise of Sutil’s defensive driving! He certainly drove well, but let’s not forget he was in one of if not the fastest car in a straight line this weekend, something the RB6 doesn’t do well, so in an overtaking scenario it’s not as cut and dry as “the Red Bull’s faster.”

      1. True but you have to look at how the cars vary. The RB6 cornering speed more than makes up for it. Seb was close enough to pick up a tow and even though they Merc’s powerhouse is great, it isn’t the bee all and end all. Perhaps at Monza it would have a bigger impact.

        Also watch Sutil’s movement, he enever leaves the door open and to be under pressure for 10 laps from a Red Bull it is quite some achievement. Not a miracle drive but certainly on of the surprises of the day I feel.

        1. And since they have their f-duct working, the straight line speed is a lot better – not as good as that of FI with switchable wing, but overall, on low fuel, the car is a second faster.

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