Sunday: Di Resta and Force India, Best of the Rest
The Indian team delivers its best performance of the season by bringing both cars into the points for the first time since the Grand Prix... of Australia. Although he had to succumb to the final attack from Lewis Hamilton, Paul di Resta achieved his best performance of the season, while Adrian Sutil was penalized by the safety car intervention, which relegated him behind Nico Rosberg.
Paul Di Resta – 6th
« My first Singapore Grand Prix was a lot of fun and I am very happy with the result. I don’t think the safety car really helped us because my super soft tires still had a few more laps to go mid-race, but it didn’t penalize us either.
After that, it was about maintaining my pace against Rosberg, taking care of my tires, and bringing the car home. I had nobody in front of me in the last part of the race, which helped me and our pace was solid.
This is undoubtedly my best race of the season, but it’s the result of all the hard work done behind the scenes. We came here with upgrades that allowed us to gain in performance, tire endurance, and we saw the benefits today.
Adrian Sutil – 8th
« We have been aiming to bring both cars into the points for a long time now, so we can be very happy with where we finished. The points we scored give us a bit of a cushion over Sauber in the championship.
It was a fairly normal race for me, even though I lost a few positions because of the safety car, when Rosberg passed me and stayed ahead until the end of the race.
The last stint was quite difficult because I had to do nearly 30 laps on the soft tires. I had Perez close to me, then Massa was closing in quickly on the last lap. Fortunately, I managed to hold on to eighth place.
Vijay Mallya, CEO and Team Principal
« I must say that I am thrilled with today’s result. We knew we had the performance in the car to enable both our drivers to score points, but leaving with 12 points is extremely satisfying. It strengthens our sixth place in the championship and brings us closer to fifth place.
One of the key moments of the race was the intervention of the safety car, when we chose to bring both cars in at the same time. The pit crew did an excellent job and it played a crucial role in our final standings.
Paul and Adrian both performed brilliantly all weekend and did nothing wrong. With five races remaining, we must now continue this momentum.
