Both Adrian and Tonio had good first laps, with Adrian up to fifth by the time of his first stop on lap 15. On rejoining Adrian dropped to 13th behind Pedro de la Rosa, but was able to move back to tenth on lap 26 when he passed the Spaniard on the straight. Pedro’s rear wing however came apart, dropping carbon shards on the racing line. A safety car period ensued, after which Adrian was quickly elevated to eighth when Alonso served a drivethrough penalty for passing Kubica off the track. Adrian then scythed past Michael Schumacher through Luffield for seventh, but soon found a charging Vettel in his mirrors. Vettel – third in the championship going into this race – tried every which way to pass Adrian, however he kept him behind for 10 laps until Vettel eventually squeezed past on the final lap.
Tonio moved steadily up the field and was sitting in 15th position by the time of his pit stop just over halfway through the race. He graduated through the field to 11th after a change to the softer tyres but he too had to fight for position until the very end of the race as Alonso sought to regain track position following his penalty. Tonio however kept his nerve and his line to hold onto 11th, only narrowly missing out on giving the team a double points finish.
Adrian Sutil (car 14)
It was fun and quite an interesting race. We started on the hard tyre as we wanted to try a long stint at the start but it was not really possible as the tyres didn’t behave well at the beginning. I didn’t have enough grip on the car so we came in to do an early stop and go on the soft tyre, so really the opposite strategy to everyone else. It worked well although the last ten laps were tough. But we managed it and there were some really good fights with Schumacher and then Vettel. It was good racing and I defended my position well against Vettel until the final lap, but then he just seemed to drive into me and I lost the racing line and had to move over. Otherwise I don’t think he would have got past me. All the same eighth position was a good result in the end, it’s more points and it keeps that momentum going. I’m really looking forward to my home Grand Prix in Germany next.
Tonio Liuzzi (car 15)
I really enjoyed the second part of the race. We need to understand what happened in the first part of the race as with the hard tyres we had unbelievable understeer. I couldn’t cope with the high speed corners and was really struggling to keep positions and a strong pace. We have to work it out as on the softer tyres we were performing very well and finished just a few hundredths from the points. Definitely without this issue we could have been in the points so we’ll look at it and understand. We also still have an issue with the speed in the race but it was a great race overall and I always pushed 100% as you never know what can happen at the end.
Dr Vijay Mallya, chairman and team principal
I’m really proud of both drivers here today – both demonstrated great racing acumen to keep positions. It also gave us some great television! In both situations – Adrian with Sebastian and Tonio with Fernando – it would have been very easy for them to buckle, but they really did us proud and so nearly produced another double points finish. The pace of the car is clearly there and with more updates scheduled for the next race we can be very optimistic for the second half of the season. Our next focus now has to be getting the whole weekend together on both cars, but in terms of finishes and results we are where we should be at this point in the season.
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