Saturday: Sutil and Di Resta propel Force India into Q3

Adrian Sutil – 10th and 9th

« We can be quite happy with today’s result. Starting the qualifying, we felt we had the pace to make the top 10, but finishing higher than ninth and tenth would have been difficult. So once we qualified in Q3, we felt we’d gotten the most out of the car and it would be better to save our tires. We kept an eye on what Mercedes was doing, but we ultimately stayed in the garage. I think the advantage of saving a set of tires was worth it because it’s a tough race for tires and we have more strategic options that way.

For tomorrow, anything can happen during the race and our stated goal is to bring both cars into the points.

Paul di Resta – 13th and 10th

Considering the difficult day I had yesterday, it feels good to start from the tenth position for my first Singapore Grand Prix. We knew yesterday that the car was performing well here, and I think we got everything we could out of it during this session. That’s why we stayed in the garage in Q3 because it gives us more freedom of choice for tomorrow, with fresh tires.

As for the tires, I’ll have to rely on the data collected by Adrian because I wasn’t able to do any laps with fuel yesterday.

This morning, I didn’t feel very comfortable with the super-soft tires, but I was happier with the soft ones.

For the race, we will try to fight with the cars ahead of us, but we must also keep an eye on those behind because all the cars in the middle of the pack have shown solid pace recently.

Vijay Mallya – CEO and Team Principal

We knew, coming into this weekend, that we had the potential to do well here, and we proved it today. It’s a circuit that demands aerodynamic support and the car was fast from the start of practice. In each session, we showed a top 10-worthy pace, so it’s satisfying to achieve this in qualifying with both cars in Q3 for the first time this season.

This is a particularly good result when you consider the time we lost on Paul’s car during free practice 2, and he did a great job of getting things back on track.

The aim tomorrow will clearly be to capitalize on what we showed today and to leave with both cars in the points.