Planet-F1

Sutil: We need to catch back up to Honda

Saturday 28th June 2008

Adrian Sutil is hoping the new upgrades that Force India tested at Silverstone this week will help them close the gap at next weekend's British GP.

Instead of making progress Force India appear to have fallen right off the pace, proving to be the slowest team on the grid at the previous event in France.

It was the culmination of a disappointing decline for the team who had been hoping for a breakthrough into Q2 this season.

Sutil, though, reckons this past week's Silverstone test has laid the starting blocks needed for Force India to close back up to their rivals.

"We hope so, for sure," he told Autosport when asked if the new parts could improve the team's performances. "Let's see if we can catch back Honda a little bit.

"All the other teams are too far away and Toro Rosso are quite far with the new car, so our goal is to keep up with the other cars. Then we want to make the gap closer and then be able to race again.

"There were a few bits that worked quite well and a few bits that needed to be tested a little bit more. Aerodynamic wise I think we did a step.

"We had a new damper, which needs a bit more testing because there was a lot of understeering, but we really need the updates.

"I think we have about three tenths with these updates. Let's see how much we can get out of it, but overall it was positive."