Sutil 'happy' to stay at Force India for '11
Date published : 29 Jul 2010 - 19:06:34
Adrian Sutil says he would be happy to continue his relationship with Force India into a fourth season in 2011.With the grid's top four teams all retaining their existing driver line-ups for next year, attention in the driver market has now turned to the seats at the midfield teams with Toro Rosso the only one in that area of the grid to have confirmed both its drivers for 2011.Speculation in recent weeks has suggested that Russian rookie Vitaly Petrov's seat alongside Robert Kubica at Renault is set to come under threat from some of the sport's more established drivers, with Sutil's name having been linked to the drive alongside Timo Glock, Heikki Kovalainen and Nick Heidfeld.German driver Sutil made his Formula 1 debut with his current Silverstone-based squad when it was known as Spyker in 2007, and has remained a consistent presence at the team since Vijay Mallya's takeover the following year as it has moved up the grid.Asked at the Hungaroring on Thursday if his options were still open for 2011, Sutil confirmed that they indeed were although he suggested a fifth successive season at his current team was likely, particularly given the lack of alternative drives. Yeah, [my options are] still open, he told reporters. I have got an option with this team here again. But we will see what's going on.At the moment I don't see any other team, so I would be happy to stay here another year.Hopefully my team is happy to continue with my work as well.Force India, meanwhile, comes into the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend looking to banish the memory of its dismal Hockenheim weekend, when it failed to score points for just the second time this season.After a difficult Saturday left its cars towards the back of the field, the team's woes were compounded on the opening lap when Sutil and team-mate Tonio Liuzzi collided and then the team fitted the wrong tyres to each car after both had scrambled to the pits at the same time.Sutil admits the tyre mix-up which earned the team a reprimand from race stewards was a chaotic moment, but says the team has since talked through the incident and is confident it will prove a one-off.We had a little mess at this race, I have to agree, he said.It's one of those races you might have in a year, hopefully only one.You can learn a little bit out of it.He added: We are all trying to do as best as possible but sometimes certain circumstances in the race are unpredictable and it gets a mess suddenly. Both cars pitting at the same time, you have to react on certain situations very quickly and just a little bit wrong communication can have a big affect on everything.That's what happened in Hockenheim; we spoke about it, we had a meeting about it and I think that there are quite a few things to improve. We are aware of that and we hope it is never going to happen again.Force India will become the latest team to try out the exhaust-blown diffuser on its VJM03 in Friday practice but, like many teams have found, Sutil stressed the concept will be very much a work in progress.Of course we expect a few tenths out of it, but you can't really say how much it will be, Sutil acknowledged.We know it can make a very big difference if you use it properly, but it's early stage of development so it's not that it's absolutely high developed, end of the development already, and we stick it on the car and it works.So it's [the] early stage. That's why we try it here; if it works we develop it a little bit more for the next races and then we increase our performance.
