Sutil criticises Maldonado and race stewards
The Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday was not the dream race that Adrian Sutil had been hoping for, in what was Force India's 100th Grand Prix weekend since they joined F1 on the grid for the 2008 Australian GP.
It had looked promising enough when the German driver had secured eighth place on the grid in qualifying the day before, but Sutil's problems started early when he was among a number of drivers bunched up behind the slow-moving Valtteri Bottas.
The Finn had locked up a stunning third place on the grid in the cold, wet conditions on Saturday, but come a dry and much warmer race day the Williams was clearly out of its depth and falling back rapidly in the early laps, creating a bottle neck of frustrated drivers trying to get past. When it came to Sutil's chance to have a go, Bottas squeezed the door shut going into turn 3 and a committed Sutil was sent spinning over the grass.
"I saw a chance to overtake Bottas after he had a bad exit out of turn two. We were side-by-side but I was on the kerb and it spun me around," explaining Sutil, who didn't blame Bottas for holding his ground.
"It was a racing incident," he said. "In the end, it was a simple mistake. Without the spin, I wouldn't have had problems so it was my mistake,"
"[It] cost me quite a few positions and I was lucky nobody hit me when I was in the middle of the track," he added, summarising the whole incident as "unlucky, but lucky - because I was able to turn the car around and go on."
It did lose him a lot of track position before he was able to get underway, however, and that left him in the middle of traffic that included Bottas' team mate Pastor Maldonado.
"I dropped back and the pack was bunched together, which is when Maldonado ran into the back of me and damaged my rear wing," he explained. "Maldonado missed his braking point - again, as he always does - and he hit my rear. That had a big effect with damage on my car."
Inevitably the reduced pace of the Force India left him susceptible to being lapped by race leader Sebastian Vettel later in the race, and shortly afterwards Sutil found himself being shown blue flags to let the battle for second place between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso past.
Before he could do so, Sutil inadvertently allowed the approaching Hamilton to gain a DRS activation that helped him stay ahead of Alonso for a few more laps - and as a result, the race stewards pounced and handed Sutil a drive-thru for not reacting fast enough to the blue flags.
I was quite disappointed with the drive-through. I was just racing Raikkonen, trying to push on. I tried to give them the straight to pass me, and that is where Hamilton overtook me with the DRS as well. I thought 'Okay, they were behind me for one lap, but that's usual around this type of circuit'.
"I don't think it was a fair penalty because I too had to lap so many cars today," he said. "It sometimes took one or two laps, and that's normal for this circuit. The penalty cost me two positions and three points."
Despite all the problems he'd experienced during the afternoon, Sutil still came hom in the points in tenth place at the flag. With his team mate Paul di Resta finishing in seventh after an impressive 56-lap stint on the medium tyres, it turned out to be a good day for the Force India team on their centenary weekend in F1.
"It's great to see both our cars in the points at our 100th Grand Prix. It brings our tally to 51 points and strengthens our fifth position in the championship," said deputy team principal Bob Fernley. "Adrian's afternoon was rather more eventful [than Paul's], but it was a disappointment to pick up the penalty in the closing laps so it's something we need to review.
"Overall I think we should be pleased with the outcome after a challenging weekend," he added. "The car remains competitive and we can hopefully carry our form into our local race at Silverstone at the end of the month."
