Sutil to start at 10th position in Chinese Grand Prix

SHANGHAI - Force India experienced a mixed qualifying session at the Chinese Grand Prix Saturday.

Adrian Sutil will start the race from 10th position, but there was disappointment for Vitantonio Liuzzi, who will start Sunday’s race at 18th position.

Adrian progressed through to the second segment of qualifying with the 12th quickest lap and then on his final lap of qualifying, posted the ninth fastest time.

In the third segment, Adrian used the softer tyre compound to post a time that was only just bettered by the Mercedes of Michael Schumacher in the dying seconds of the session.

“I think we can be very pleased with that. I know this position (10th) very well from the last races in Australia and Bahrain. The car is behaving very well and we can be happy about the balance we have,” said Adrian.

“We can look forward to the race tomorrow I think our long runs were quite good on Friday.”

Liuzzi said the car was reacting well to changes and seemed to have a good pace.

“For the third time in four races I got caught in traffic with a Williams and an HRT. But that’s how it is, it happens, we have to look at why and then work on this,” he said.

“I think we are in great shape for the race as the speed has been there when we were on the longer runs but when you start in 18th place it makes life much more difficult. We are still optimistic though and we keep pushing whatever happens.”