Indian outfit's qualifying performance all-too reminiscent of past ownership.

by Chris Hayes

Re-branding and a sizeable cash injection have yet to free Force India from its 'minnow' tag as both drivers, in an all-too familiar scenario for the former Spyker-Midland outfit, languished towards the bottom of the timesheets during qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix this weekend.

Despite showing promising form in Friday practice, neither Giancarlo Fisichella nor Adrian Sutil were able to wrestle their way out of the much stigmatised 'drop zone' in the opening qualifying knock-out session.

Of particular concern was the margin by which the two drivers missed Q2. Fisichella lapped 19th-fastest overall, almost a second slower than P16 man Jenson Button in the last available position for those wishing to progress.

"I had some problems on my first run with reduced grip and understeer, so the obvious way to go was to do two timed laps on the first run, but it did not prove to be the best solution in this case," explained the veteran Italian.

"It is a bit disappointing after Friday. It was difficult to make the tyres work properly, so now we will see what will happen in the race. We've had some strong performances, so let's see."

Sutil, who struggled with understeer and braking problems, wound up a further seven tenths of a second adrift of his team-mate.

"I was unlucky," rued the young German. "The first run was ok - I did a 1m23.1s, which was quite good for a first lap.

"On the second run the grip level was much better and I had a good feeling, but then into turn three there was a car coming out of the pits. I lost all the downforce, got some huge understeer and basically had to lift off and break up the lap as there was no point in driving it after that.

"On my final run, again I had a very good first sector, but then my brake disc seemed to develop a problem and it was quite difficult to get the car to slow down for corners. It's very disappointing."

Mike Gascoyne, the Silverstone-based squad's chief technical officer and the man ultimately responsible for overseeing the team's development programme during the spring break, was similarly disheartened by the result, particularly with the way the VJM01 used its Bridgestone tyres.

"Qualifying and really the whole of the day have been very disappointing for the team," underlined the Englishman. "Adrian only got his first run in on a dirty track and then had traffic on his second run before a brake problem on his last outing, which meant he couldn't set a representative time.

"Giancarlo was slightly more fortunate in that he got in some reasonable runs, but the car hasn't had the same grip we had on Friday and basically, fuel-corrected, we were about a second slower than we were able to be [in practice].

"It is very difficult to understand why we have struggled so much with the tyres in qualifying, but we have to work on it and look to have a better race."