Tyres to blame for Force India’s troubles says Sutil

2013 Singapore Grand Prix

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Adrian Sutil says the new tyres introduced by Pirelli following the British Grand Prix have been the cause of Force India’s slump in performance.

Pirelli began altering its compounds after a spate of high-speed failures at Silverstone. In the four races since Force India have added just two points to the 59 they’d scored previously.

Asked if all the team’s problems we’re tyre-related Sutil said: “Yeah, I think so.”

“Since the new tyres came in there was clearly a step down for us. We used to be able to do one less stop in the race which was a big advantage compared to others, and also general balance of the car was much better.”

Sutil said the team have been trying to regain their lost performance since then. “Spa was still OK but Monza was a big disappointment,” he said. “Coming here of course we try to improve our performance again.”

“I don’t think we can get everything out of our package and we don’t develop the car any more, that’s clear, but it’s not different to other teams. So we have to get back again where we used to be and I think even with this car we can show more. In Singapore here I expect a better performance.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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8 comments on “Tyres to blame for Force India’s troubles says Sutil”

  1. I seriously feel for this team. They did a great job with the allocated tires, which most of the grid failed. Then Silver-stone incidents happens. They might have already lost the 5th Place to Mclaren there.

    1. If they had honestly done such a good job and actually understood why the car was so good with the old tyres, they would have been able to cope with the changes as well.

  2. Just a week ago Sutil claimed that the balance problems had nothing to do with the new tyres:

    We have balance problems, the cause of which we just cannot clearly define at the moment. It has nothing to do with lack of updates and the subsequent lack of speed, the new tyres or something like that.

    Here is the link: http://www.motorsport-magazin.com/formel1/news-178359-kolumne-adrian-sutil-zu-wenig-stabilitaet-im-heck/

  3. “Its the tyres fault, F1 has soft penalties, Lewis is not my friend anymore………………” He doesnt mind having a say (aka whinge) this lad does he!!

    When he drives and shows his talent, Australia this year he was great, I really take a liking to him. When he is always negative with his comments, I dont.

    I do agree that Force India seem to has lost out with the tyre change and I can see the frustration (Build your car for next year on next years regs) so a mid year change not ideal. But Sutil’s comments always seen negative IMO.

    1. I’m not sure how you can agree that the tyres have hurt your performance in a positive way…

  4. Maybe analysis of the data over the last week showed otherwise?

  5. You just have to stomach it, mate. No way would it have been acceptable to retain those tyres for Spa or Suzuka (even Monza with Parabolica).

    Besides, I don’t really like this tendency for teams to rely on being able to nurse the tyres to almost hide a performance deficit. It’s a short term gain over a long term loss and overall it just makes the team look like they don’t really know how to make a properly fast car. I don’t think the point in these tyres was to allow the teams to design their cars around them to such a degree.

    1. If it’s just about being “fast”, then how come Williams are so slow even they use the same engine (Renault) as Red Bull?

      To make a proper “fast” car, you have to optimism and collaborate all aspects of your car (Engine, Chassis, tires, aerodynamic, down force etc)

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