Sutil: Rapid Force India must deliver

Date published : 28 Feb 2010 - 22:03:28

Adrian Sutil was delighted with his Force India on the final day of winter testing at Catalunya, but warned that the squad had to show its pace when it counted rather than flattering to deceive. Force India has sometimes failed to transfer strong testing or practice pace into race performance, although it made great strides in this area in the second half of 2009. Having flown to fourth today - less than 0.2s behind Lewis Hamilton's pace-setting McLaren - Sutil was brimming with confidence, but aware he and the team had to deliver at Sakhir. "I feel like this was the first proper test day for me," he said. "We did our long race simulation and I think we can be quite happy and confident. "The pace was good, the tyre life was very good, and I was able to run a lot of laps on both the soft and the hard tyres without any problems so both compounds seem to be working really well for us. "Also the qualifying sim went well. "Speed-wise the car is competitive and we have to show it in Bahrain now." Although Force India has not topped any sessions this winter, Sutil and his team-mate Tonio Liuzzi have been hot on the front-runners' heels ever since they joined the fray at Jerez - with the German repeatedly declaring that he has never felt so well prepared going into a new season.