Both the Force India cars should have been in Q3 but Sutil's teammate Vitantonio Liuzzi was caught up in traffic and the Italian, who scored the outfit's first points in Bahrain, would be 13th on the starting grid tomorrow.
"Both should have been in Q3. Liuzzi had traffic problems and Sutil too could have qualified seventh or eighth but for a slight mistake in the first sector of his final timed lap," Force India chairman Vijay Mallya told reporters.
Hispania driver Chandhok, meanwhile, completed 10 laps in the first qualifying session and was happy to at least start from the grid tomorrow, unlike in Bahrain where he had to start from the pit lane.
"I wanted to make it through Q1 and I did. I am very pleased with this result for our second Grand Prix. We are not too far from the top runners. I haven't made any significant errors. It's a great way to start my F1 career," Karun said. Meanwhile, Sutil was not really overjoyed despite making Q3 for the second successive time.
"It's not disappointing to start 10th but it's not entirely satisfying either as I felt we could have done better," said the German."We made it through to Q3, which was another great effort from the team. I made two runs in Q3 and neither was particularly great as the soft tyres didn't seem to get up to temperature," he said.
"We've had a good pace through the weekend so we have a strong platform to go from but let's see what happens tomorrow. At this stage I don't want to make any prediction," said the lanky driver.
Liuzzi was thoroughly disappointed, saying Q3 was well within his grasp."(It was) really disappointing today. There was so much traffic -- it was just impossible. Pretty much every lap I had some problem, particularly with the Williams of (Nico) Hulkenberg and the Sauber of (Pedro) de la Rosa who don't seem to be able to use their rear view mirrors.
"On all of my runs, I struggled to finish a proper lap. It's a shame as I definitely think the pace was there to make it through to the top 10," he said.
Mallya also felt things could have been even better."I think it shows a lot that our drivers are disappointed with these positions. Last year we would have been delighted, but this year we expect more," explained Mallya, also the team principal.
"Tonio got caught in traffic on every lap and without this I think we could have been in Q3 with two cars. Adrian was not entirely satisfied with 10th but nevertheless we can look to build on this tomorrow. Overall though a great effort from the team and the drivers to maintain the form we showed in Bahrain," he said.
Sebastian Vettel will start tomorrow's Australian Grand Prix from pole position after leading a Red Bull one-two at the Albert Park. Teammate and local favourite Mark Webber was 0.116 seconds behind Vettel, followed by Ferrari's Fernando Alonso.