Hot Rod or Hot Dog? The Drivers’ performances analysed… Brazil Pt.3

- Published on Nov 10th, 2010 by Benson Jammichello

Force India

• Qualifying: Liuzzi (16^th) Sutil (22^nd)
• Race: Sutil (12^th) Liuzzi (ret)

If you ever wanted an example of a team who’ve gone backwards throughout the season, please turn your heads to look at the Force India team. Challenging towards the sharp end six months ago to scrabbling around in the mid table scrum at the end. Not ideal.

Of course, it doesn’t really help when you try your hardest to mess things up for yourself. Liuzzi slid off the road in qualifying during his quick lap and came back on track just at the right time to ruin Sutil’s fastest run.

During the race Sutil managed to stay out for 50 (yes, that’s fifty) laps on the hard tyre, before pitting and dropping to 13^th, managing to make up one place by the end by passing Buemi for twelfth.

Liuzzi was yet again unremarkable before binning it into the wall at the first corner, facilitating the entry of the safety car.

Most concerning, the team have now been overtaken by Williams in the Constructors’’ Championship by one point. The difference between sixth and seventh will be, we’re sure, a reasonable sum of money. It just goes to show that, apart from the title battle, there are also battles further down the field. Watch out for it.

Badger’s best: Sutil

Lotus

• Qualifying: Trulli (18^th) Kovalainen (20^st)
• Race: Kovalainen (18^th) Trulli (19^th)

Lotus are now just one race away from finishing tenth and being the best of the new teams this season, which would be an excellent achievement.

Both qualifying and the race went fairly without incident, although if Badger was Heikki Kovalainen we’d be a bit hacked off that after being a tenth away from Jarno Trulli in qualifying we suddenly found two cars in between us thanks to penalties for Buemi and Sutil.

Anyway, imaginery Badger gripes apart, it’s very much business as usual for Lotus and they’ll be hoping that next season sees a surge towards the midfield. Oh, and Trulli had another hydraulic problem, although thankfully not a terminal one. He’ll feel bereft when it all starts working properly.

Badger’s best: Kovalainen

Virgin

• Qualifying: Glock (17^th) di Grassi (21^st)
• Race: Glock (20^th) di Grassi (NC)

Badger’s Big Brazilian Bash wouldn’t have been the same without the presence of the very friendly Virgin Racing, who very kindly took questions from various Badger readers and gave a virtual tour around the back of their garage.

Sadly, their race weekend didn’t go quite as well as the Badger event, with Timo Glock saying that it “[wasn’t] a very exciting race”, that they couldn’t match the Lotus’ for pace and that they “were not quick enough”. As it goes, that’s a pretty damning indictment.

His team mate Lucas di Grassi had a fault on his car which was then fixed in the garage, but he ended nine laps down and wasn’t classified. Ah well, better luck next time.

Badger’s best: Glock

HRT

• Qualifying: Klien (23^rd) Senna (24^th)
• Race: Senna (21^st) Klien (22^nd)

Out qualified by a man who’s had a fraction of the time in the car that you’ve had and at your home race. All told, it wasn’t a great Saturday for Bruno Senna.

We at Badger think Klien would also have beaten him comfortably during the race had he not dropped back four laps at the beginning after a fault on his car.

How much closer would HRT have been to the other new teams had they had Klien in the car all season?

Badger’s best: Klien

Thanks to Unlap for the graphics