Fisichella, Sutil record top 10 finish in 2nd practice session

Barcelona, April 25: Force India began the European leg of the Formula One season with a bang as both its drivers notched up top 10 finishes in the second practice session ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix here on Friday.Fisichella was 17th on the timesheet in the first practice session while Sutil was 16th.

In the afternoon, both considerably bettered their timing with Fisichella finishing ninth, just ahead of his younger German teammate. Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was fastest in both practice sessions. Despite the typical changeable weather conditions in Barcelona that saw the wind picking up over the day, Fisichella and Sutil's first runs in the second session were enough to put them first and second on the time sheets for the first 30 minutes. The pair then moved to concentrate on longer runs and eventually finished the session with ninth and tenth fastest laps. "Today there was in general much less grip, more understeer and wheelspin, so this morning I was struggling a little bit. "In the afternoon I was happier and we went in the right direction. It's too early to say definitively but it doesn't look too bad," Fisichella said. Sutil too felt the team has started well, even though wind made things tough at the Ciruit de Catalunya. "We put on some new tyres and did some new tyre runs in the second session and the balance was very good. I was quite happy, but then later on the wind increased and although the longer runs were not bad, I was not happy with the balance," Sutil said. Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne did not find a reason to complain. "Another productive day for us with no major mechanical issues on the car. The circuit had a lot less grip than the test last week as we expected, but we worked through our programme of evaluating both sets of tyres and set-up work. "Conditions in the second session were quite tricky as the wind got up and the track temperature increased, but overall I think we are a lot more competitive than we expected to be, so we should look to have a very strong weekend," he added. Bureau Report