Force India and Adrian Sutil picked up two further points for the Constructors’ and Drivers’ Championship standings, respectively, by dint of a ninth-placed finish in Turkey.
It was a good recovery after missing out on getting into the top-ten shoot-out in qualifying on Saturday, and Sutil drove a steady race to capitalise on the mistakes of others ahead of him.
"It was a good race in the end, I enjoyed it," a happy Adrian said after the race. "I had a good start and first lap and the only real downside was the pit stop when we lost a few seconds at a crucial time -that’s where I lost two positions and had to fight back past Kobayashi.”
Sutil was quick to acknowledge that he benefited from the errors of others, with the Vettel-Webber collision and the later Alonso-Petrov clash moving him further up the order.
"Ninth position after the weekend we’ve had is the most we could have done. Okay, we probably lost a position due to the time lost in the stop, but at this stage any points are good," he concluded.
Team-mate Vitantonio Liuzzi continued a poor run at Istanbul Park, finishing in 13th after being knocked out of Q1 for the second time this season.
"It was a long race but we knew we would have a difficult one after the qualifying yesterday," the Italian commented. "We realised that we are struggling with the car and I still don’t have the grip. I tried to push hard at the beginning with the strategy but in the end we knew it would be a big job as when you don’t have the right grip it’s tough."
[Original image via GP Update]
Richard Bailey
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