Shanghai, April 13 (IANS) The two Force India cars will start 11th and 13th at Sunday's Chinese Grand Prix after failing to qualify for Q3 here at the Shanghai International Circuit Saturday.
After easily making it into Q2, Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil clocked 1:36.287 and 1:36.405, respectively. Britain's di Resta had made it into the top-10 when he crossed the finish line in Q2 but other drivers pushed him out after completing their flying laps.
Di Resta seemed pleased with his result considering the difficulties during practice.
"I think P11 is a reasonable result considering the difficulties we had during final practice where our performance level dropped away. The changes we made ahead of qualifying improved things and in the end I just missed out on making Q3.
"I don't think that will make much difference tomorrow because it's going to be a race all about making the tyres last. The good news is that we've got a free choice on tyres for the start and our car has proved to be competitive over race distances, which means we can be optimistic of scoring points," said the 26-year-old.
Sutil, on the other hand, expected to qualify better but said the conditions did not work to their advantage.
"I was hoping for a better result but the warmer conditions did not work to our advantage. There was no major problem with the car and I felt happy with the balance but I lost some performance during qualifying and didn't have the grip to go any faster. The positive is that I'm able to choose my starting tyres tomorrow and I have all new sets available for the race which should allow us to target some points in the race," said the German Sutil.
Force India currently lie fifth in the constructors' standings with 10 points from two races.
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