Nurburgring: While Force India's Adrian Sutil delivered a sixth place finish in the Formula One German Grand Prix here Sunday, Karun Chandhok in the Team Lotus car ended up 20th and four laps down in his first outing in over a year.
Force India delivered another excellent performance as Sutil raced to a superb sixth place while team-mate Paul Di Resta was the victim of a first lap crash, but recovered to finish 13th. The eight points scored today move the team into seventh place in the Constructors' Championship.
"It was a great race today and I'm so pleased to get this result for the team because we really deserved it. We had a great car all weekend and everything just went perfectly," said Sutil.
"The tyres lasted well and we definitely made the right calls with the strategy, which helped me beat Nico (Rosberg) in the final stint. It was actually quite a lonely race for me because I spent most of the time running in clean air, so I could really show the potential of the car.
"To get this result in my home race also makes it extra special and I'd like to thank the fans for their support this weekend. But this is just the start because we still have lots of work to do in the coming races to score lots of points and catch up with the teams ahead of us," Sutil added.
Di Resta had no such clean run as he was involved in a first corner incident in the very first lap that all but took him out of contention.
"Once again, it's a frustrating end to my weekend because I had a great chance to score some points today. I made a reasonable start, maintained my position and I was racing with Michael (Schumacher) into the first corner. Then I got hit from behind, which must have been Nick [Heidfeld], and that spun me around and compromised my race," di Resta said.
Team principal Vijay Mallya said: "Today has been a wonderful team performance and I'm delighted to see Adrian finish in sixth place - a result that everybody has been working hard to achieve. We have been a bit unlucky in the last few races, but today we demonstrated the true pace of the car and delivered the result to match it."
On his part, Karun had a few moments in the race, but managed to keep it together and finish the distance, much to his satisfaction.
"That's a full race distance completed and an awful lot of learning under my belt. Honestly, that probably wasn't the race I wanted. I had a couple of high speed spins and I think I need more time to get used to the tyres.
"When they start to go off, there's very little give compared to last year's rubber, but that's all part of the learning process and I'm glad I got the car home and did the best job I could," Chandhok said.
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