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Liuzzi encouraged by '09 test |
As well as being delighted at getting some rare track time with the Force India team, Vitantonio Liuzzi revealed that he was impressed with its first run with the proposed 2009 regulations.
The Italian opened the first group test since the three 'flyaway' races in Australia, Malaysia and Bahrain and, after establishing a strong baseline set-up with the 2008 aero package and tyres in the morning, joined the majority of the field by switching to a 2009 set-up in the afternoon.
Although it was the first time that the Force India team had tested since February, when the VJM01 made its track debut, and despite only having three days at its disposal to work on improvements for the current season, Liuzzi ran with the development slick tyres that Bridgestone aims to reintroduce next year as well as the latest aerodynamic ideas that the team has devised to comply with the new raft of regulations. The car ran reliably throughout the day, allowing the Italian to complete 91 laps.
"Today was a good day of testing, with quite a few kilometres and no real mechanical issues," he confirmed, "The car was good from start to finish and responded well to the changes we made. It has improved a lot from the last time I drove it in February, which shows the steps forward the team has made in the first three races.
"Then 2009 aero package was difficult to drive, as there is much less downforce, but I think Bridgestone has done a good job with the tyres as they performed very strongly over one lap. On longer runs, it was not quite as good, but there is still a lot of time to get it right. I was pretty happy with the work we have done for both 2008 and 2009 - it looks promising."
Chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne confirmed the usefulness of the day, despite Liuzzi trailing the other eight cars on track. Toro Rosso and Super Aguri were absent from the first day of the test, but Force India could be encouraged by all but matching Renault and Toyota in an unpredictable session.
"We used the standard 2008 VJM01, with the 2008 grooved tyres, to establish a baseline set-up but, in the afternoon, moved to the 2009 downforce level and tyres," Gascoyne confirmed, "We obtained some useful information on their respective performance and, after a basic warm-up, the tyres behaved better than we expected. On longer runs, there is some drop off with the 2009 tyres and there is still some work to do, so we will continue tomorrow with a similar programme with Giancarlo and hope to push on with the solid work we put in today."
Giancarlo Fisichella takes over behind the wheel for the second day of testing, with Adrian Sutil finishing the test on Wednesday.
