Monaco GP Review: Force India

Force India: Making progress

Force India continued their good run this season with both cars finishing in the top-10 in Monaco. The cars had shown decent pace in the race but have not been consistent in the qualifying.

Paul Di Resta has been impressive this season after scoring points in all the races so far except Malaysia. He has receieved praises from both his boss Vijay Mallya and Team Principal Bob Fernley, the latter claiming that he would’ve been a world champion if he was driving a Red Bull.

Sutil’s form has been the opposite of his team-mate. After finishing an impressive 7th in his debut race after coming back in an F1 car, Sutil fell away and didn’t score a single point in the next 4 races. With Di Resta performing so well, pressure was on Sutil to deliver a top-10 finish in this race.

With roads of principality allowing very less opportunities for overtaking, qualifying played an important role during the race.

Qualifying, as expected, proved difficult for the Silverstone-based team as Di Resta failed to make it to Q2 after setting the 17th fastest time in Q1. Sutil performed much better as he qualified 8th fastest.

Both the drivers started on super soft tyres. Di Resta came into the pits on lap 9 and went for new set of soft tyres, which dropped him further down the field. An aggressive move on Massa saw him overtake the Brazilian at Sante Devote and move up to 15th. But it was the team’s strategy and a bit of luck which helped the Scotsman to a top-10 finish. He pushed his soft tyres until lap 45, but the crash between Maldonado and Chilton came as a blessing for the Scottish driver. The race was red-flagged and the team could change the tyres before the restart and he was able to hold onto to 9th position till the finish.

Adrian Sutil came into the race after a disappointing weekend at the Spanish GP where he finished 13th. Sutil was under immense pressure to deliver as he had failed to score a single point after the Autralian GP and showed a glimpse of his true ability in Monaco. Starting from the 4th row, he had to battle through the midfield throughout the race. The German did not get off to a good start after he damaged his front wing in the first lap melee but carried on after being told that it wasn’t going to affect his performance drastically. He pitted on lap 30 for a set of soft tyres and made two fantastic moves at the hair-pin on two former world champions, Button and Alonso, and was up to 7th. The collision between Perez and Raikkonen helped him gain a couple of places and he was able to withstand pressure from Button to pass the chequered flag in 5th place.

Force India’s performance in the races has been terrific but if the qualifying pace can also be improved, Force India can soon aim for a podium finish. The team currently lies 5th in the constructor’s championship, 7 points above McLaren.