Q&A with Adrian Sutil (British GP)
Sunday ,10 July 2011
“The car feels quite good in the dry”
Adrian Sutil gave the Force India team something to cheer at Silverstone when he topped the times on a drying track part way through Q2, but in the end he was squeezed out in the battle to make Q3. He will start the race in 11th place, with a free tyre choice.
You were fastest for a while in Q2. How did things pan out for you as qualifying progressed?
“In Q1 I just did one run with the hard tyre and it was enough for me to go through, and it started to rain in the end. The second session was a little wet at the beginning. We waited a bit, went out with a set of softs, and that was going very well. I did three laps and that’s when I was quickest. Probably I had a bit more heat in the tyres than other people, but also those conditions always suit me – slick tyres running in the wet. On the last set of tyres I had one lap, and it was also a good lap, but not enough for Q3. Paul was ninth, Maldonado 10th, and I was 11th. I think 0.02s was missing. It’s always that close, Valencia was the same, I was 0.02s in front. Then I was lucky, this time not! But I think it’s not too bad to be 11th. It turned out really well for Paul, and we’re all really happy for him.”
Nobody has done much running. Any thoughts on how the car will go in a dry race?
“The car feels quite good in the dry, but there’s still data missing, of course. You don’t really know how long the tyres last. The soft tyre doesn’t last so well, and there’s a lot of graining on the front left. The hard tyre is much better, but it’s also slower in average lap time. That’s where the interesting bit will be tomorrow, to make the right decision about what strategy is actually faster overall.”
It’s been confusing for everyone with the diffuser rules changing this weekend! Do you feel that you have gained or lost?
“I think we didn’t lose too much. It was still good to drive, a bit more unstable under braking, but there’s not so much hard braking here, so it doesn’t hurt too much. In the high speed it was quite a good balance. I was quite happy that the rules changed. But I thought it was quite strange that they were arguing the whole weekend about the engine maps, and even before qualifying! I think the formbook changed a bit, but it was a compromised qualifying, where the smaller teams were a bit lucky, and it started to rain in the last few minutes when everyone was waiting to do the last run. But I’m also convinced that the top teams lost more than the small teams.”
Credit: Force India (www.forceindiaf1.com)
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