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Adrian Sutil of Germany and Force India drives during practice for the German Grand Prix at the Nuerburgring
Adrian Sutil believes that problems with his Drag Reduction System(DRS) cost him a chance to make it into Q3 at his home race. Instead, he had to languish in 15th place in today’s qualifying session.
“15th spot for my home race is a bit disappointing,” said Sutil. “I had a technical issue with my DRS during Q2 and it was not working, which cost me about half a second per lap.”
The German driver was fourth fastest on a green track in FP1 but his pace faded away when all teams made major setup changes from FP2 – he was only 11th and 10th fastest in FP2 and FP3 respectively. In contrast, Sutil was consistently in top-three in practice sessions at Silverstone and qualified his car in seventh place.
“That’s why P15 was all that was possible today. Otherwise I think I would have been very close to making Q3. We can fix the issue for tomorrow so we will be ready for the race,” said the 30-year-old.
He also complained that team is far off from the pace it showed at Silverstone a week ago.
“Apart from that our absolute pace has not been at our usual level and we’ve struggled to deliver the performance we showed at Silverstone. Tomorrow is a new day; we will push on and I believe points are still possible,” he added
His teammate, Paul di Resta, who starts the race from 12th place wasn’t satisfied with his performance either.
He said: “It’s been quite a difficult couple of days trying to get the car in the right operating window and I’ve never felt totally comfortable.
“For tomorrow we just have to hope that we can repeat the race pace we’ve shown earlier in the season because that has been one of our strengths.”
