The Force India Formula One Team will start the 2008 Chinese Grand Prix with Adrian Sutil and Giancarlo Fisichella in 19th and 20th positions respectively. The
duo were evenly matched in qualifying at the ultra-modern Shanghai International Circuit, finishing just 0.09secs apart.
Although both demonstrated an improved pace from their morning practice times, Adrian and Giancarlo found the grip level much reduced in the afternoon and struggled to find a comfortable balance in the 20 minute first qualifying segment.
Adrian Sutil (car 20)
‘The balance changed quite a lot in qualifying. Normally you would always find grip, but this time the level was lower and so under braking I had lots of oversteer and locking at the rear and the traction was very bad everywhere, which made it quite difficult to do a perfect lap. I did three laps and although they were all OK it makes you think maybe there was a little bit more in it as the car is difficult to drive round here. We do have a better race pace though so we should improve on our starting position.’
Giancarlo Fisichella (car 21)
‘I’m not so happy with today as we struggled again with the balance and on my last lap I couldn’t improve. I had some really big oversteer through sector two and lost around four tenths and then again through turn eight I lost some more time so I couldn’t go faster than my second lap. It’s a shame we couldn’t start higher, but we do know we can stay with the others under race conditions so we have to look to have a good strategy tomorrow.’
Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer
‘I think we knew from yesterday that it was going to be a difficult qualifying session. We have been struggling to get the tyres to work and in qualifying both drivers have struggled with the grip so we ended up pretty much where we expected. We do know though that our race pace is always better when we get the tyres to run during the longer runs so we’ll look to have a more competitive day tomorrow.’
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