Barcelona: None of the two Sahara Force India drivers managed to be in top-10 in the qualifying as Paul di Resta will start Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix in 13th position, just ahead of teammate Nico Hulkenberg. McLaren's Lewis Hamilton grabbed pole position with a lap time of 1m 21.707s, with which he pipped Willaims' Pastor Maldonado to second place.
Ferrari's Fernando Alonso was third, followed by the two Lotus drivers -- Romain Grosjean and Kimi Kimi Raikkonen. Paul di Resta got the better of teammate Nico Hulkenberg, with a lap timing of 1m 23.125s but it wasn't good enough to go into Q3.
India's Narain Karthikeyan managed a timing of 1m 31.122s, which is well outside the 107 per cent time of 1m 28.363s and it is not yet know if he is allowed to start. Double defending champion Sebastian Vettel will start from eighth position, just ahead of Mercedes' Michael Schumacher and Suaber's Kamui Kobayashi.
The trio did not set a Q3 time. Paul was hopeful of scoring points but admitted it is easier said than done considering tight field. "It has been quite a difficult weekend so far trying to get the car dialled into the circuit. In fact, it was only during the my final qualifying run that we made a change to the aero balance and I felt that the car was really hooked up.
"It's close throughout the field once again, but we've been fairly aggressive on set-up and our pace over longs runs has looked quite competitive so far this weekend, which gives us a reason to be optimistic for the race," Resta said.
His teammate Nico felt that the team came out with the best possible result. "I'm pretty satisfied with my final lap in Q2 because I don't think we could have achieved much more from the session today. That's just where we are at the moment in terms of qualifying pace.
"We are still getting to understand the upgrades we have on the car, but it's also clear that everyone else has made a step forward here and so the midfield remains extremely tight," he said.
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