The German again out-qualified more experienced team-mate Christijan Albers, to line up 21st, but it was his start that caught the attention, the #20 car vaulting eight places up the field on the opening lap, and continuing to run on the coattails of the midfield until the pit-stop window opened. Sutil, however, remained encouraged.
"The season has been so far very good," he claims, "We have, of course, had some problems in some of the races, but I finally had a great race in Indy. It was better than Canada but, even in first 20 laps, I was competitive and racing the
Toyota and Aguri in front. It could have been a good race, it was a shame not to finish.
"I hope, at Magny-Cours, we are able to do a really great race. I have my experience now, I know the track so I am really confident I can do a good race. I did Friday practice session there with the team last year, and I did an F3 race in 2004 with the Kolles team and it was one of our best races. Then I had a test there with ASM with
Lewis Hamilton - I think I beat him by two hundredths of a second!"
Team-mate Christijan Albers also made the most of the skirmish at the start, running in the high teens before a combination of heavy fuel load and blue flags dropped him further down the order. The Dutchman eventually took the chequered flag in 15th place, but he too is pleased with the way things are going.
"We are making good progress everyday," he points out, "You saw it last week at the test - we were immediately on the pace, with a 1min 23.3 lap on the first run with new tyres. It's very close to Adrian's time at the end of the second day, so you can really see that we are getting there with the development. It was a shame on the last day that we didn't have a chance to better this lap due to an electrical problem - I know we could have gone even quicker. We went well and, if we keep going at this rate, it will get even better.
