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Sutil finishes 7th at eventful Monaco GP

May 29, 2011 20:29 IST

Adrian Sutil produced Force India's best result of the current Formula One season by finishing seventh in the action-packed Monaco Grand Prix, in which five drivers failed to finish the race in Monte Carlo on Sunday.

Sutil earned eight points for Force India after returning empty handed in the last four races, while teammate Paul di Resta finished 12th, an improvement of three position from the grid.

Adrian SutilSutil had started 14th on the grid and had managed to sneak into top-5 but after a late second pit stop, minutes before the messy lap 71, he dropped to eighth.

In the lap 71, Sutil hit the barriers coming out of Tabac and suffered a rear puncture. As he was struggling to keep his car in a straight line, the cars behind him started lining up and as a result Torro Rosso's Jaime Alguersuari smacked into the back of Lewis Hamilton and Renault's Vitali Petrov.

Petrov's race ended at that time as he hit the barriers and his car was damaged badly, forcing the suspension of the race for close to 30 minutes.

When the race resumed, Sutil managed to climb one spot up and maintained that till the end.

Force India had not earned any point in the last three races of the season.

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel won fifth race of the season from pole position and was followed by Ferrari's Frenando Alonso and McLaren's Jenson Button.

India's Narain Karthikeyan, who drives for Hispania, finished 17th.

It was a dramatic race and season's first safety car came into play in lap number 34 when Hamilton banged into the side of Felipe Massa at the Hairpin and race of the Ferrari driver ended when he hit the barriers in the tunnel.

Saturday's qualifying session was also marred by an accident involving Sauber's Sergio Perez, who did not race on Sunday.

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