Adrian Sutil: “At Spa everything is possible”
Monday ,29 August 2011
Adrian Sutil recovered from the frustration of a qualifying crash at Spa to put in a great drive to secure a seventh place for Force India. From 15th on the grid he made good progress on the first lap. Helped by consistent pace and a stop under the safety car, he ran strongly in the top ten throughout the race. We asked him about his afternoon’s work.
Adrian, Spa was a bit of a strange race – you beat Massa who started 11 places ahead of you, but you lost out to Schumacher, who started nine places behind! How do you summarise the race?
“In the end it’s the right order almost! Maybe Massa lost a little bit too much, but the teams finished in the right order. I think it was a bit lucky probably for me that the safety car came out at the right time, as it was for Schumacher and Button, and then the right order was there again. As always starting from 15th, you don’t expect to be seventh. But at Spa, everything is possible.”
You seemed to gain and lose at the start – what happened?
“I had a good start; I made three positions going into La Source. Then I was on the outside and I had to take another line because Senna and Alguersuari had a shunt, so I lost again two places. So more or less I didn’t gain much, but I gained from some of the guys who crashed, so I was 11th on the first lap. Then Webber pitted early, and I was 10th.”
How did things progress after that?
“Then I just did my race. It was good and I could see the pace was there. I moved up very quickly as a few people pitted. It was great also to race against the top guys at the front. Some of them were coming from behind so you had to defend a little bit. It was good to be back in the top ten.
You seemed to be fighting with a lot of big names. Was that fun?
“Yeah, I had a fight with Webber, with Alonso, with Schumacher, with Button. My car was slower, so I just had to defend as much as possible. But at the same time I didn’t want to lose too much time in doing that because I had some cars coming up behind, and also in front, that I was racing. I think I did it the right way, and it kept my position in the end. But it was not enough to keep Michael behind – he was on the softs at the end and I was on the medium. He used the DRS to pass me.”
Were you pleased with the way your strategy worked out?
“Yes, we were soft-soft-medium. I had a good feeling about a two-stop before the race, and that was the plan. The medium was not so good in the end. The soft tyre performance was better compared with the other cars, but the medium, especially compared to Mercedes, didn’t really work so well.”
Could you have done any better if you hadn’t had the crash in Q2?
“Maybe I would have started sixth or seventh, and maybe I would have been the one who was crashed in to! Everything happens for a reason, and I was probably lucky that it happened in qualifying, so I had a clean race. I don’t think we would have done any better if we had been in a better starting position. You can see Rosberg lost a position to Michael, and he started fifth. So I think seventh was the maximum for the weekend.”
Was the crash a little frustrating, especially given that you were fifth at the time as the track dried?
“You always want to show your best performance, even if it doesn’t mean anything for the race. I was disappointed, but at the same time I was very lucky that there was almost no damage on the car. I was just a little bit too far on the left on the kerb, and went on the KERS as well, and it happened.”
Credit: Force India (www.forceindiaf1.com)
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