The second qualifying session (Q2) continues to elude Force India which will have Giancarlo Fisichella 18th on the starting grid followed by Adrian Sutil in the Malaysian Grand Prix in Sepang on Sunday.
The qualifying session of the second race of the 2009 F1 season saw the Force India drivers just tenths from making the cut into Q2 with a throttle pedal problem plaguing Fisichella.
"I had a problem with the throttle pedal on the first run, so we changed it and I lost the chance to do three runs, which was very important," a dejected Fisichella later said.
"The lap I did was clean and the car is well balanced. Again the field is very mixed and with the chance of some rain we should look to keep up with the field and take any chance we can," he said.
Sutil felt with a little more downforce, things could have done better but was still happy with the way his car behaved.
"We did a good job today, we had no problems and this was our pace - we couldn't really have done better. We just need to find some downforce," he said.
"For tomorrow, I want to have a good race and to get to the finish. We are very quick down the straights and there is some potential for overtaking so let's see - we had an exciting race in Melbourne and anything can happen. I am still positive," said the German youngster.
Chief race engineer Dominic Harlow was not too unhappy either even though he too lamented Fisichella's throttle pedal issue.
"It was a tense session today with a constant threat of heavy showers, but they didn't materialise. Giancarlo lost some track time with a throttle pedal problem, but recovered well to place a time just 0.05s faster than Adrian," he said.
On tomorrow's race, Harlow said, "We're expecting an interesting race tomorrow and we know from last weekend that our race pace coupled with strong straightline speed and a creative strategy could be good enough to score points."