Force India driver Adrian Sutil, who ended up with a fourth spot at Monza yesterday, says he feels no pressure in the absence of Giancarlo Fisichella
Force India driver Adrian Sutil, who ended up with a fourth spot at Monza yesterday, says he feels no pressure in the absence of Giancarlo Fisichella
Force India driver Adrian Sutil has said that he felt under no pressure whatsoever in the Italian Grand Prix despite being the senior driver after the departure of Belgian GP hero Giancarlo Fisichella.
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"There was no extra pressure. I was a little disappointed with my Spa result. So, I wanted to do better here, but there was no pressure. The whole weekend has been a big success. The car is amazing. This is a continuation of the work we did at Spa, and the good feeling of being a race driver is back. It's a great feeling," said Sutil, who came in fourth in yesterday's race after starting from second place.
Brawn GP's Rubens Barichello finished first followed by teammate Jenson Button.
Perfect strategy
"The race pace overall was very good and finally the one-stop strategy worked better than the two-stop. All the same we scored a lot of points and I am really happy for myself and the team at the track and back in the factory and wind tunnel," said the German driver.
There was an increase in expectations of a podium finish from the Force India drivers following the team's first ever podium finish at the Belgian GP where Fisichella came second. Sutil drove brilliantly yesterday but narrowly missed out on a podium finish.
"We don't have a 'lead driver' policy both Vitantonio Liuzzi (other driver roped in after Fisichella's exit) and I want to do the best we can for Force India," he said.
Probably that's the reason why the German was able to set the Monza track ablaze. In the free practice on Friday, he clocked the fastest time of one minute 23.924sec for the 5.793 kilometre track. Then he took second spot on the start grid on Saturday, threatening another shocker of a result from Vijay Mallya's Force India over the weekend's Italian GP.
Sutil was modest of his chances though. "In Belgium, we showed that anything's possible, but a win is still a big step.
Mallya said he wanted to be on the podium next year and we got there this year so we are a bit ahead already, but a win in Formula One is very hard. There are a lot of good teams and it's very competitive."
There was some concern when Raikkonen and Sutil came in together after 36 laps, the Force India driver arriving with such velocity that he sent one mechanic flying. Fortunately, the mechanic appeared to be unhurt.
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