Sepang, 23 March 2013: Sahara Force India showed good pace in today’s Malaysian Grand Prix qualifying with Adrian Sutil topping the time charts in Q1. However, rain played spoilsport as Sahara Force India cars had good pace in the dry. 

In the Q2, only Adrian Sutil could go through to Q3 and finally he qualified in ninth place. Adrian will move ahead a place following the stewards' penalty for Kimi Raikkonen for obstructing Nico Roseberg. Raikkonen will now start on P10.

Paul Di Resta was caught out by rain showers in Q2 and will start from P15. Paul had an off-the-road excursion in one lap and in the very next took a multi-spin to finish way back and failed to qualify for Q3. He will start from P15.

King of Good Times, Vijay Mallya, will be arriving on Saturday and will be present with the team on Sunday. Sahara Force India, who finished 7th in the Constructors' standings in 2012 where they consistently competed with Sauber team but lost out the sixth place. The goal for this year, is to regain the sixth place and the team started the season well with a double finish in Melbourne and with 10 points in the kitty, they will be looking for a dry race to score more points tomorrow.

P9        Adrian Sutil    VJM06-03

Q1:      1:36.809

Q2:      1:36.834

Q3:      1:53.439

Adrian: “It’s a shame that the rain arrived for Q3 because our pace in the dry had been very strong. I’m still not totally confident with these tyres in the wet and the car was sliding around in the corners with too much oversteer. I will hope for a dry race because we have a competitive car and I’m happy with the balance. The target is to try and push to the front tomorrow with a good strategy and come away with points or maybe more.”

P15      Paul Di Resta VJM06-04

Q1:      1:37.493

Q2:      1:44.509

Paul: “Quite a frustrating day because we got caught out by the weather. We’ve looked strong this weekend so felt quite confident heading into qualifying, but the rain arrived earlier than the team expected. Now we need to see what the weather does tomorrow, but I will certainly come back fighting. I’ve got lots of new tyres, which is more than enough to complete the race and the car has been working well here so far.”

Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal

“We ended qualifying today feeling a little bit disappointed. Throughout practice we have been very competitive in the dry and Adrian demonstrated that once again during Q1 when he set the fastest time. In Q2 we misjudged the weather with the rain coming in earlier than anticipated, which proved very costly for Paul who didn’t have time to complete his quick lap in the dry. Adrian progressed to Q3 but struggled in the wet conditions and didn’t feel comfortable on the intermediates. Had it been dry, I’m confident he would have been higher up the grid. Going into the race we will keep a close eye on the weather and be pushing hard to get both drivers home in the points.”

ends