Force India driver Adrian Sutil will start 11th, while his team-mate Vitantonio Liuzzi will be nine places behind him when Italian Grand Prix gets underway in Monza on Sunday.
Sutil clocked 1:23.199 in the Q2 to secure 11th starting position, which was one of the tightest qualifying sessions of the year. Sutil had a timing of 1:23.303 in the qualifying stage.
Clocking 1:23.493 in Q1, he eased into the Q2 but just missed out on a Q3 slot for the second consecutive race by only a fraction of a second.
Sutil will now line up on the clean side of the grid alongside Michael Schumacher.
Liuzzi timed 1:24.439, enduring a frustrating qualifying and completed just three laps in Q1 when his VJM03 car lost drive on his out lap.
Unfortunately the problem proved too difficult to rectify within the qualifying session and Liuzzi was forced to end his session early without setting a competitive lap time.
Force India Chairman and team principal Vijay Mallya was, however, satisfied with the performance.
"It's been such a close day of action today that I think we can be pretty pleased to be P11 with Adrian, less than a tenth of a second from Q3. From that position anything is possible as we have seen so many times this season," Mallya said.
"Tonio had a more difficult day with problems in FP3 and then qualifying, which is obviously frustrating on his home track. However, he is a fighter and more motivated than ever to move up the field. Given the pace yesterday I think that is very possible," he added.
Sutil also admitted he had to face some stiff challenge during the practice session.
"The times have been so close today that we knew qualifying would be tight as well. All the same we were very, very near to getting into Q3 just a couple of hundredths of a second so we can be happy with the performance," said Sutil who drove the car number 14 today.
"Starting P11 means we will get to start on a new set of tyres and clean side of the grid, which can be an advantage. I think we're still looking good for a points finish tomorrow," he added.
Meanwhile, Liuzzi said, "We had a problem in the morning session where the car seemed to lose drive and did just a few laps. We did some analysis between the sessions and tried to solve the problem but then in qualifying a similar issue occurred."
"On the first lap we lost power and then we had to stop completely once I got it back to the garage so I couldn't get a real flying lap in. It's a shame but tomorrow's the most important we've got a good car here and you never know what can happen so we won't give up until the end," Liuzzi added.
© 2024 Rediff.com -