Sutil delighted despite no podium

Sutil, starting from second position, wound up fourth for his Force India team after a race-long battle with Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen.

The German was unable to pass the Finn, who made good use of his KERS to keep Sutil at bay.

Despite that, Sutil was very happy with his first points of the season.

"It was a great race and the car was performing really well," said Sutil. "At the start we knew it would be really difficult to defend our position against Kimi and his KERS button and then I was stuck behind him the whole race. I was really quick but I just couldn't find a way past him as the KERS had such a big effect on the circuit.

"Going into my second stop we had a chance to overtake him in the pitlane and I was pushing really hard but I was a bit late on the brakes into the box. I think I have to say sorry to the mechanics for going a bit wide! But still they did a great job there.

"The race pace overall was very good but finally the one-stop strategy worked better than the two-stop. All the same we scored a lot of points and I am really, really happy for myself and all of the team at the track and back in the factory and wind tunnel."

Vitantonio Liuzzi, on the other hand, had a disappointing day after having to retire with a mechanical problem while running strongly in the points.

"Finally, I am racing again and I gave it 100%," Liuzzi said. "We didn't make any mistakes and everything was perfect until we were in a great position, but that's racing unfortunately. I had an unusual problem, the transmission started making a strange noise and then I lost drive and couldn't push.

"That's racing it was just a shame as we didn't have a reliability problem until now, but that's how it is. We won't give up though until the end of the season, we want to get lots of points and I am sure we will make it."