Barcelona Test - Day two
STRONG DAY FOR FORCE INDIA
The Force India Formula One Team continued to make strong
progress with its two new VJM01 cars on the second day of
this week's three-day test at the Circuit de Catalunya, Spain.
Giancarlo Fisichella and Tonio Liuzzi once more recorded some
competitive lap times, with Giancarlo securing the sixth quickest
time of the day - just 0.03secs behind the fifth-placed Ferrari
of Felipe Massa and less than 1.5secs from the fastest time
of the day - with Tonio posting the 10th best time.
The Italian duo both had encouraging days, completing set-up
work in the morning and race and qualifying simulations in
the afternoon. Both programmes went without major problems,
with Giancarlo completing 102 laps and Tonio 89.
Adrian Sutil will take over from Tonio for the final day
of testing, while Giancarlo remains for his second day.
Team quotes
Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer
'Again a very productive day of testing. We had no major reliability
issues and despite the numerous red flags, we were able to
work through the whole programme, with both drivers doing
set up work in the morning and then race distances in the
afternoon with pit stop practice. That went very well on both
cars, so it was overall a good day. Thanks very much to Tonio
for his two days of testing, we have definitely made progress
with the new package and are very pleased so far.'
Giancarlo Fisichella
'It was a good day. We did over 100 laps and worked through
all the schedule. I was struggling with the front locking
at first, but then we understood what the problem was and
made a change so the car was back to normal and at the end
I was comfortable and confident and able to improve my lap
times. I am happy with the new package, it is better with
more downforce and has more stability, but we have still got
something more for the first race so it looks quite encouraging.'
Tonio Liuzzi
'Today was a much better test and we achieved a lot of kilometres
and had no issues with the car. It seems to be getting better
and better as we felt yesterday. We seem to have made a step
forward from last year's car and now we are tuning the little
details. We did some long runs and short runs for both qualifying
and race simulations and were pretty happy. We still have
some work to do, but we are for sure going in a good direction.
The engineers did a great job - it was a tough programme between
myself and Giancarlo but we both had no issues reliability
wise and were very competitive over the day.'
Testing data
Driver: Giancarlo Fisichella & Tonio Liuzzi
Track: Circuit de Catalunya, Spain
Best lap time: 1min 22.516 (Giancarlo) / 1min 22.942 (Tonio)
Laps completed: 191 (102 Giancarlo, 89 Tonio)
Kilometres completed 889km
Air temperature: High of 17ºC
Track temperature: High of 18ºC
Weather: Overcast in the morning, clear in the afternoon
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