Low-Key Thursday Practise For Force India

The Monaco Grand Prix often results in some strange changes to the pecking order. Last year Adrian Sutil was nine minutes and 45 seconds away from fourth position when an out-of-control Kimi Raikkonen removed him from the race. Nothing so dramatic happened to Force India in practise this year, though it seems the team remain Ferrari magnets...

In first practise, Force India quietly settled in, concentrating on the harder of the tyre compounds. Giancarlo finished the session 15th and Adrian finished 18th, but the only really interesting thing that happened all session was that Sebastian Vettel's engine exploded in a shower of smoke and oil in the tunnel.

Come the afternoon and Force India experimented with both soft and hard tyres. Unfortunately there did not seem to be much speed difference and graining was reported on both compounds. Adrian finished the session 13th while Giancarlo was 19th and last after Felipe Massa ruined his fast lap on soft tyres. The Ferrari driver, having been overtaken at the Swimming Pool, proceeded to attempt to re-take the position even though overtaking in the final sector of Monaco is nearly impossible. Some frenetic blocking and fist-waving ensued. Giancarlo avoided colliding into Felipe and even stayed ahead of him but the lap time was lost.

It does not look especially promising for qualifying on Saturday. The one bright spot is that with inadvertant blocking in Q1 inevitable, the Force India drivers could profit from penalties issued to other people.