Sutil unhappy with car balance

Montreal, June 7: After struggling to find traction on the low grip Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve during the practice sessions, Force India driver Adrian Sutil is not happy with his car’s balance ahead of the qualifying rounds for the Canadian Grand Prix here.

Both Sutil and his Italian teammate Ginacarlo Fisichella had an average outing as they finished 16th and 15th fastest in the first and 18th and 14th in the second practice session, here on Friday.

Fisichella with a timing of 1:17:508 in the second session improved upon his 1:19:815 in the first to stand at 14th in the overall standings, led by Lewis Hamilton of Maclaren.

Sutil, who is considered one of the best drivers in wet conditions, said the car balance needed to be improved.

"Today was an average day, working through our programme of tyre evaluation and waiting for the track improvement. This morning was very wet and then in the last 10 minutes it seemed to dry up and was OK so we could use the dry tyres," he said.

"There is a lot of work to do as I’m not 100 per cent happy with the car balance at the moment. It could be the tyres and the graining, but there is still some room for improvement so we need to make sure to fix it for tomorrow," said Sutil, who came up with his best lap in the first session clocking 1:17.813.

Heavy rain before the start of the morning session added to the challenge and both the drivers waited until a dry line cleared before switching over to dry tyres for a final run. — PTI

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Shruthi holds Mohota

Kozhikode, June 7: Top seed Nisha Mohota of West Bengal was held to a surprise draw by Karnataka’s K Shruthi even as other prominent seeds continued to have a smooth sailing in the second round of the 35th National Women’s ‘B’ Chess Championship here on Saturday.

Swathi Ghate (LIC), Mary Ann Gomes (WB), Eesha Karvade (Mah) and Aarthie Ramaswamy (IA) registered easy wins.

On the topboard, Shruthi, playing white, made a D4 opening and soon adopted Cole system against the fancied Mohota, who failed to gain any significant advantage as the game progressed. — PTI