Europe 2009 Friday Practise 1: Adrian Performs Well
Sutil was impressive
By Alianora La Canta
August 21 2009
The first session after the long summer break was not particularly spectacular, but for Force India fans there was some good news. A combination of a vast array of upgrades plus some low-fuel running put Adrian Sutil in 6th position. Giancarlo Fisichella had a quieter session and finished 16th.
9:02 - Sutil is the 13th driver to leave the pits, which is unusually late for Force India.
9:04 - Fisichella is the 17th driver to leave the pits. Adrian re-enters the pits.
9:06 - Giancarlo re-enters the pits.
9:36 - Adrian is seen standing in the pits, looking at a timing screen
and listening to an engineer. I don't think he's going out any time
soon...
9:43 - Both Force India drivers have joined the track. To
illustrate the difficulties out there, an inflatable tube crossed the
track two minutes ago. Apart from an Alonso spin, nothing else has
happened all session so far.
9:46 - Giancarlo goes 11th with a 1:45.247. Adrian, impressively, goes 3rd with a 1:43.617!
9:48 - Giancarlo's next lap went wrong at the first sector, while Adrian's went wrong in the second sector. He pitted.
9:50 - Adrian has pitted. He appears to have been doing a simulated
quali session, which is odd given the time of session. Giancarlo
improves to 10th of 18 with a 1:44.512.
10:10 - Both Force Indias leave the pits.
10:13 - Giancarlo sets two green sectors but doesn't improve.
10:14 - Giancarlo and Adrian both set green first sectors.
Giancarlo also sets a green second sector, but neither improve their
times. Some improvement in that last sector is needed.
10:15 - Both Force India drivers are slow. Traffic?
10:16 - Giancarlo sets a green sector 1. However he appears to have
been delayed by Jarno Trulli and consequently the rest of the lap is
slow.
10:19 - Adrian sets the fastest Sector 2 of all en route to 6th
place and a 1:43.209. Giancarlo still isn't improving his overall
times.
10:21 - Both Force Indias have pitted. They've done six laps each. Apparently Vijay Mallya's boat is in the harbour.
10:26 - Giancarlo is back on track. His first sector was 41.1 seconds, which indicates a problem of some sort.
10:28 - Adrian is back on track. Giacnarlo has completed a very slow lap.
10:29 - Neither driver improves his fastest time.
10:30 - There still isn't any improvement, meaning Adrian finishes
6th after a great simulated qualifying run early on and Giancarlo gets
16th.
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Fisi is showing as 6th 0.621 seconds behind .
Looks good for Qualifying
Where is Kimi...!!!
Lol
But seriously, it looks fantastic for the rest of the weekend. I've been predicting elsewhere that a Force India driver will be seen in today's post-qualifying press conference and I see no reason to doubt that, except possibly bad luck.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2009:08:22:11:48:14 by Alianora La Canta.