Fisichella to start Hungarian GP 17th, Sutil 18th

Budapest: With their second qualifying session target not materialising, Force India will start Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix with Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil in 17th and 18th positions respectively.It was a poor qualifying session for the outfit with Sutil’s qualifying compromised following an accident in this morning’s free practice session in which he damaged his front wing and nose and lost vital running time.

His VJM02 was only repaired in time to allow Sutil to complete two flying laps. Fisichella had a better session, completing his first run on the soft Bridgestone tyres. The Italian bettered his times by one second on his second run and was able to put in two further flying laps on his third outing. His fastest lap, 1min 21.807, looked set to ease him into Q2 but with the track quickening with each car he was just knocked down into 17th position in the closing seconds of the session. “For us, unfortunately the qualifying wasn’t as good as we hoped. In the morning I just made a mistake and went off line and lost some grip and went into the barriers.” “The guys did a great job to get the car ready but there was only enough time at the end of the session for two flying laps. All we needed was an extra couple of tenths that would have helped us go into Q2 so without the accident I think we could have been quite good. At least in 18th we have a couple of cars behind us but it’s going to be a tough race,” Sutil said. Fisichella said he knew it was going to be difficult on Saturday with the low grip. “But to just be one or two tenths from getting into Q2 is a little bit frustrating. The only problem was the lack of grip and it was difficult to do a good lap. It’s going to be a tough race, but I would still like to get a good finish to take us over the mid-season break and into the next race where we have a lot more development to come,” he said. Bureau Report