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Force India starts Hungarian GP from back of the grid
Force India failed to break the jinx and for the umpteenth time this season will start on Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix from the back of the grid.
- Press Trust of India
- Updated: August 04, 2008 04:40 PM IST
Read Time:2 min
Budapest:
Following a tight qualifying session at a scorching Hungaroring, Giancarlo Fisichella will start 19th, ahead of his German teammate Adrian Sutil.
The duo completed three runs each in the first 20 minute segment of qualifying. Despite the back-row positions, their respective times were within one second of 10th position.
"Conditions on Saturday were tough but actually that was the maximum we could do," Fisichella later said.
"The target was to do a 1min 21.7 or 21.8 and we did a 21.6 so that was the most we could get out of the car. The balance was not too bad, but unfortunately the grip level is still very poor. I think we're not particularly quick round here and we have to accept that, but we are still quite close to others," added the Italian.
Sutil too complained about lack of balance and said, "The tyres did not behave as we expected and I had lots of graining, which meant we couldn't get a good balance. I decided to run the harder set of tyres in the end for my fastest lap, at least I didn't get the effects of the graining with them."
"Overall I'm not that happy, but let's see what happens on Sunday," he added.
Chairman and Managing Director Vijay Mallya, however, took heart from the pace of both the VJM01 cars and said, "It would be very easy to say we're on the back row again, but we've been eliminated from Q1 with a BMW, a Honda and a Williams, so clearly this is a very competitive field here yet again.
"One second from the top 10 shows we're getting closer. Although we have had to revert back to the standard shift box for the weekend, we are very optimistic about running the seamless shift gearbox and look forward to actually racing it in Valencia."
Force India failed to break the jinx and for the umpteenth time this season will start on Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix from the back of the grid.Following a tight qualifying session at a scorching Hungaroring, Giancarlo Fisichella will start 19th, ahead of his German teammate Adrian Sutil.
The duo completed three runs each in the first 20 minute segment of qualifying. Despite the back-row positions, their respective times were within one second of 10th position.
"Conditions on Saturday were tough but actually that was the maximum we could do," Fisichella later said.
"The target was to do a 1min 21.7 or 21.8 and we did a 21.6 so that was the most we could get out of the car. The balance was not too bad, but unfortunately the grip level is still very poor. I think we're not particularly quick round here and we have to accept that, but we are still quite close to others," added the Italian.
Sutil too complained about lack of balance and said, "The tyres did not behave as we expected and I had lots of graining, which meant we couldn't get a good balance. I decided to run the harder set of tyres in the end for my fastest lap, at least I didn't get the effects of the graining with them."
"Overall I'm not that happy, but let's see what happens on Sunday," he added.
Chairman and Managing Director Vijay Mallya, however, took heart from the pace of both the VJM01 cars and said, "It would be very easy to say we're on the back row again, but we've been eliminated from Q1 with a BMW, a Honda and a Williams, so clearly this is a very competitive field here yet again.
"One second from the top 10 shows we're getting closer. Although we have had to revert back to the standard shift box for the weekend, we are very optimistic about running the seamless shift gearbox and look forward to actually racing it in Valencia."
Topics mentioned in this article
Formula 1 Giancarlo Fisichella Force India Kimi Raikkonen Adrian Sutil
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