• Monaco Grand Prix

Force India expecting qualifying lottery

Force India boss Vijay Mallya is expecting a mixed grid in Monaco © Sutton Images

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• Race:
• Monaco Grand Prix

• Championship:
• FIA Formula One World Championship

• Drivers:
• Tonio Liuzzi
• |
• Vijay Mallya
• |
• Adrian Sutil

• Teams:
• Racing Point

Force India boss Vijay Mallya is expecting qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix to be a lottery.

Adrian Sutil was one of the stars of Thursday practice, finishing the second session eighth fastest ahead of Jenson Button and Mark Webber. Mallya is confident the car is good enough to qualify in the top ten but said fulfilling that potential would be dependent on finding a gap in the traffic.

"Today we were very satisfied with the pace of our longer runs and the positions in both sessions were encouraging," Mallya said. "However, what we have seen is that the speed difference between the cars - sometimes up to five seconds - will make qualifying a lottery. We believe we have the potential to be right up there fighting for Q3 but we'll have to see how it goes in on Saturday. The right ingredients are there, we just need them to mix together in the right way."

Force India driver Tonio Liuzzi finished the session in 15th and said he had already been struggling to get a clean lap in.

"It was a difficult Friday due to the traffic, as can be expected round here," he said. "It was tough with 24 cars in the field but you just need to have sensible driving from the others, particularly given the time differences between cars. But this isn't going to change - Monaco is always like this and it is always a bit of a gamble but we have to throw our lot in as well. We need to improve the balance on the low fuel runs as we still struggled a little with the rear end grip but in general I think we are in a better shape compared to the last race. We have quite a lot of data we can work on tomorrow to try to improve everything for Saturday."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.