Spa, 24 Aug 2013: Sahara Force India came through a challenging qualifying session of varied weather conditions with Paul Di Resta qualifying in fifth place ahead of Adrian Sutil in P12.
P5 Paul Di Resta VJM06-04
Q1: 2:02.338
Q2: 1:48.925
Q3: 2:02.332
Paul Di Resta said: “Fifth place on the grid is a great result. At the start of Q3 I knew that I wanted to go straight out on the intermediates. It was a brave decision and the team let me go ahead with it, while the others chose dry tyres. I knew it was our best chance to get up towards the front of the grid and it paid off. It’s a shame that the rain stopped a bit too early because there were only a few cars that were quicker than us in the wet and they just got ahead at the end of the session. The main thing is we are in a strong position for tomorrow and we will come back tomorrow ready to fight.”
P12 Adrian Sutil VJM06-03
Q1: 2:02.749
Q2: 1:49.103
Adrian Sutil: “I’m feeling disappointed with how things ended up today because I think we had the potential to get a better result. In Q2 I was on my final flying lap a bit too early and the track was getting quicker all the time. So we should have waited a bit longer and I think that would have made the difference to make the top ten. Also, I had some traffic on my fastest lap and that cost me some time.”
Vijay Mallya, Team Principal & Managing Director
“As soon as it started raining before qualifying we knew that it was likely to be an unpredictable qualifying session. The track conditions were constantly changing from wet to dry and it was vital to be on track at the right time on the right tyres. With Paul we judged this pretty much to perfection and for a while we were looking good for a front row start. But the rain eased up and he dropped down to fifth, which is still an excellent result. Adrian looked competitive in Q2 but we didn’t maximise our time on the drying track and he missed out on Q3. The big question mark for tomorrow is the weather. We’ve looked more competitive in the dry, but whatever the conditions we will push hard to come away with a strong result.”
ends
Paul di Resta qualifies 5th at Spa on Saturday. A Sahara Force India photo
