Force India's Italian Grand Prix Weekend.

Force India's Monza Weekend was one of mixed fortunes for the team. Now with the driving team of Adrian Sutil and Antonio Liuzzi, they expected to run well as the Italian Circuit is much like the one they left two weeks ago, long straights and a few corners. Low downforce required and as we know from the teams showing at Spa, this car is very good in these sorts of conditions.

Friday practice sessions were first up. During First practice, Adrian put the car into 3rd place, Antonio in his first F1 drive for what must be 18 months put, the car into 16th.  In second practice, Tonio improved his time up to 12th place.  Adrian managed however to top the time sheets setting the fastest time of the day.  Adrian said "Everything went well today. The car was working perfectly and we can be very happy about the result. It was a very, very good time that came as a result of some good work, a great set-up and getting the tyres to work well. We didn't try specifically to go fastest but if you are on top of your game and the car is working well there's no reason why you couldn't be P1 at the end of the session. It was a very productive day on a very cool track and it's good to have some fun right now."

The team lost a bit of time in second practice when the team made a planned engine change and Dominic Harlow was pleased with the way that the day went.

Third practice on Saturday morning saw Adrian again at the top of the timing sheets with Antonio only six places behind him in 7th place.  For the second race in succession, Force India were able to claim a front row place on the grid when Adrian Sutil qualified in 2nd place on Saturday, only beaten by Lewis Hamilton's KERS equipped Mclaren.

Vijay Mallya, chairman and managing director said "I'm absolutely delighted with this weekend's performance so far. We've been very strong all weekend and both drivers have been outstanding. Adrian has really showed a great maturity to achieve his best-ever starting position, while Tonio has been a revelation on his debut. Although qualifying is just one part of the equation we are feeling quite upbeat about tomorrow's race now."

Race day saw Adrian bring the VJM02 home in fourth position after fending off the KERS equipped Renault of Fernando Alonso and KERS or not, Adrian posted the fastest lap of the race.  Antonio's race ended on lap 22 after a mechanical problem forced him to stop out on track.  A good points finish took the teams Constructors tally to 13 points.

Adrian Sutil (car 20)
"It was a great race and the car was performing really well. At the start we knew it would be really difficult to defend our position against Kimi and his KERS button and then I was stuck behind him the whole race. I was really quick but I just couldn't find a way past him as the KERS had such a big effect on the circuit. Going into my second stop we had a chance to overtake him in the pit lane and I was pushing really hard but I was a bit late on the brakes into the box. I think I have to say sorry to the mechanics for going a bit wide! But still they did a great job there. The race pace overall was very good but finally the one-stop strategy worked better than the two stop. All the same we scored a lot of points and I am really, really happy for myself and all of the team at the track and back in the factory and wind tunnel."

Tonio Liuzzi (car 21)
"Finally, I am racing again and I gave it 100%. We didn't make any mistakes and everything was perfect until we were in a great position, but that's racing unfortunately. I had an unusual problem, the transmission started making a strange noise and then I lost drive and couldn't push. That's racing it was just a shame as we didn't have a reliability problem until now, but that's how it is. We won't give up though until the end of the season, we want to get lots of points and I am sure we will make it. "

Dr Vijay Mallya, chairman and team principal
"It's been another great weekend for Force India. We thought the podium would be a dream here going into the weekend and at the end of the race we were less than half a second away. Adrian drove a fantastic race and richly deserved those points. Tonio too almost had a perfect start to his Force India race career, but unfortunately we couldn't give him the reliability he deserved. Nevetheless he has marked himself out as a real star and I am sure that he will get his own points opportunities further down the line. We can go to Singapore on a real high now. We know the car is good and with more to come development-wise for this race we can be very confident of continuing this form."