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Force India driver Adrian Sutil finished a scintillating Belgian Grand Prix in fifth position here at the Spa Francorchamps circuit this afternoon to secure his first points finish since the teams home event at Silverstone. It was also his best result since the Malaysian Grand Prix at the start of the season.
When rain fell just two laps into the race Adrian stayed clear of the ensuing chaos and remained out on dry tyres despite a safety car period. On the restart Adrian was able to jump ahead of the Williams of Hulkenberg into seventh and when Vettel and Button collided he was elevated to fifth.
He pitted for hard tyres on lap 21 but was able to cruise past Kobayashi and then Schumacher to regain fifth. On lap 35 heavy rain started to fall and Adrian pitted for intermediate tyres. When Alonso spun on lap 38 another safety car period was called, allowing the German to move closer to the leaders. He finished the 44 lap race only nine seconds from eventual winner Lewis Hamilton.
“Another fifth place so I am very pleased as I started in P8. I think that was the best we could do. It was very tricky conditions out there and you never knew what would happen with the weather. When the rain came it was sometimes light in places and heavy in others and I had to really concentrate to drive it home safely,” he said.
“Of course I was racing closely so I had to keep pushing, particularly after the safety car periods when the field bunched up, so we had some great racing and overtaking. The upgrades worked well and we can still improve - it was just the start of the development, which looks good for the next race in Monza as well.”
Meanwhile, Tonio Liuzzi originally came home in 11th position, less than one second from tenth, despite having his front wing knocked off by Sebastian Vettel while in the hunt for points. However, post race he was moved up to tenth following a post-race drive through penalty for Toro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari, who was found guilty of cutting a chicane while overtaking Tonio at the end of lap 42. The penalty elevates Tonio ahead of Alguersuari and gives him the final point available.
The result makes it a double points finish for the team and gives it an 18 points advantage over Williams.
'I'm really pleased to be back in the points again this race for the first time since Canada,” Tonio said. “We've always been pushing really hard so to get a point here, and to make it a double points scoring finish for the team, is a really good reward for all the hard work we've done over the past few weeks.'
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