Fisichella on lap 2

Friday had a slow start. Force India had new upgrades for the cars; new front wing, new diffuser, new floors... ...except they weren't quite ready. One set of upgrades was ready and fitted part-way through first practise. Adrian got the first set of upgrades, did three quite short runs and set 11th. Giancarlo ran with the old versions and came 10th. At this point, it was unclear whether the upgrades were of benefit, but it was clear that the Force India was working well despite the severe test Silverstone imposes on aero.

 

For the second practise session, Adrian set his marker very early, briefly being the fastest driver before the inevitable slip down the order. What was less inevitable was tha the "slip" was only to 3rd, despite the wind changing direction mid-session. It was an astonishingly good performance from Adrian, underlined by Giancarlo managing only 19th. Clearly, Adrian not only drove really well, but the upgrades on his car were having some effect, because even when Adrian is at his best, he is rarely, if ever, 1.3 seconds ahead of his team-mate.

 

Unfortunately the copybook was blotted after the session. Adrian inexplicably managed to have a collision with Giancarlo... ...when the latter was being pushed backwards into his garage. The 170mph impact broke both their front wings, leading to a tough evening as Adrian had a spare wing fitted and Giancarlo's copy of the upgrade was completed.

 

Saturday practise featured more sustained stints as Adrian and Giancarlo prepared for the race. Adrian was 15th and Giancarlo 16th, auguring well for qualifying.

 

Yet by the end of qualifying, both Force Indias were in the bottom five. Much of this can be attributed to a red flag 24 seconds before the end of Q1. The reason was that Adrian's brakes failed at Abbey chicane. He half-spun in the gravel, then crashed sideways-on with such force that the rear wing deposited itself over the debris barrier. Thankfully Adrian was OK, but since he was 18th at the time of collision, he was stuck with a considerably worse position than he had shown himself capable of obtaining (for most of Q1, he'd been hovering around 10th place). Giancarlo was on a lap good enough to escape Q1 at the time, but red-flagged laps cannot be completed, so he had to be content with a 16th-place start.

 

The race start was electrifying. Giancarlo had opted for a two-stop strategy along with most of the field. He managed to overtake three people on the first lap and then, on lap 2, passed Hamilton and Heidfeld in the same move. He then built up a big gap between himself and the chasing pack, aided and abetted by Heidfeld causing his own version of the Trulli Train. At the second pitstop, he was passed by Glock but overtook Nakajima himself, meaning Giancarlo held 10th to the end. It was a virtuoso performance, underlining the improvement in the car.

 

Adrian's race was a lot more difficult. The spare car had been built up overnight, but it broke down only four corners into the formation lap. Adrian had to run back and get the original car (which had been repaired overnight as well) in the 10 minutes remaining before the pits closed. He'd been due to start from the pits anyway because he'd changed his chassis, but the incident did nothing for his momentum and he spent the race squabbling with Lewis Hamilton over 16th place. Adrian must be wanting to switch focus to his home race at the Nurburgring as soon as possible.

 

Even so, the potential for much better results with the new upgrade is clear. If this is what Force India can do with an impeded qualifying, where will it be when it has a normal qualifying?

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