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Mallya accentuates the positive
Thursday 29 May 2008
There wasn’t a dry eye in the house when Force India driver Adrian Sutil was forced to retire from the Monaco Grand Prix, a few tantalising minutes short of an incredible fourth-place finish.
Force India owner Vijay Mallya admitted to coming close to crying after Sutil was rammed by Kimi Räikkönen on the verge of earning five points for his team.
"I was almost in tears, and so were many of us actually!" he said. "I've had quite a lot of SMS messages and phone calls from supporters in India, all of whom are I think highly emotional. But such things happen in racing, that's what I've been telling everyone. F1 wouldn't be F1 if it wasn't as unpredictable as it is."
For Mallya, however, Sutil's effort remains a great positive regardless of the negative outcome.
"We were obviously shattered," he admitted. "We were so looking forward to a spectacular result, which was not to be. It has however done two things, and we need to take away the positives.
"First, that Adrian Sutil has a lot of ability and talent, and we're glad and proud to have him in our team. Some people started questioning my decision to keep him when he didn't finish a few races at the start of the season, but I think he has more than redeemed himself.
"Secondly, I think our strategy and our whole team came together. The race strategy was right, the set-up was right, and to see a Force India car running fourth in Monaco was a great pleasure while it lasted. We were seven minutes from home. It was unfortunate, but I guess that's what racing is all about. I can't say that I'm not feeling sad, because I am, but we'll get over it, and we'll take away a lot of positives.
"Our strategy was one stop, we filled ourselves up with fuel. I told both drivers to stay out of trouble on lap one. We have normally started very well and had incidents on the first lap, so I said stay right out of trouble, take your time, you're going to go for a one-stop strategy, bring both cars home. We knew that we were good in the wet, Adrian has demonstrated that before as well, and everything worked to perfection until that fateful moment!
"It was a great weekend for us, and what better than to have demonstrated the improvement in this team as we did."
(Photo © Force India Formula One Team)
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