A weekend that promised so much for Force India ended in disappointment as Adrian Sutil came home in 11th outside the points and Vitantonio Liuzzi failed to finish for the second consecutive race.

For sure Liuzzi will want to forget this weekend. After qualifying 18th, it was always going to be difficult for the Italian to finish in the top 10 and his race was ended on the first lap after he dropped the car under braking and went into Sebastien Buemi.

Once again Sutil qualified tenth but failed to translate this into a points scoring finish. The weather did play its part and visibility was poor but Sutil was running as high as sixth for the first half of the race and you would have backed him to finish in the points.

The Big Boys

With the likes of Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel trailing Sutil during the middle part of the race, it was hard to see how the German was going to keep the Ferrari and Red Bull behind him. Mind you he managed to keep Lewis Hamilton at bay for almost 30 laps in Malaysia. Both Vettel and Alonso overtook Adrian in one lap.

The ex-Spyker driver came into the pits from 9th on Lap 39 to put on a new set of intermediates. He came out in 13th and with over 15 laps to go it appeared to be an uphill task for the 27-year old to finish in the points.

To be fair to him he did make a good fist of it and he managed to overtake Rubens Barrichello and Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari to move up to 11th. Tenth placed Michael Schumacher who did not have the best of races went wide at the last corner on the penultimate lap and Sutil gained ground on him quickly.

Adrian could so easily have taken at least one point away from China but it was just not to be. He finished the race just a second behind Schumi’s Mercedes to cap off a frustrating weekend for Vijay Mallya’s team.

Vast Improvements

Liuzzi needs to improve on his qualifying form pretty quickly starting at the Spanish Grand Prix in three weeks time. Its 4-0 to Sutil in qualifying and I’m certain Tonio will be concerned about this. Apart from Malaysia this season, the former Toro Rosso driver has failed to get into Q3 and you could argue that Liuzzi only got into Q3 in Sepang because of the rain.

It was his worst qualifying performance for Force India so far this year at China but hopefully this will turn out to be a blessing in disguise. It was simply a torrid weekend for Vitantonio but all he can do is forget about it and move on. The same could be said for Adrian.

Just finishing outside the points yet again will have been frustrating for Sutil but all he can do is look ahead to the next Grand Prix and bounce back. Overall it was a below par weekend for Force India but despite this the team without a shadow of a doubt have made huge improvements. Personally I hope that this weekend is a minor blip and that both Adrian and Tonio will come out fighting in Spain.

Keep the Faith Force India!

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