Force India Barcelona test notes 2008-02-02

Tonio Liuzzi today continued the Force India Formula One Team's programme on the second day of the three-day test at the Circuit de Catalunya, Spain. After a particularly productive opening day yesterday, which saw Giancarlo Fisichella record the fourth quickest time of the 15-man field, Tonio had a more difficult session today as, after running reliably on Friday, the car unfortunately developed some mechanical issues today.

Tonio's programme followed on from Giancarlo's, as he ran through set-up and work on engine installation and cooling, however with a clutch and driveline problem interrupting running, the Italian struggled to find a good rhythm and match yesterday's relative pace. He nevertheless completed 61 laps of the Spanish track with a best lap of 1min 24.263.

Adrian Sutil will conclude the test tomorrow.

Team quotes

Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer

'Today was a much more difficult day as we had a couple of mechanical issues, first with a clutch problem and then a driveshaft failure, and we couldn't quite get temperatures in the rear tyres so our apologies to Tonio for the disrupted running. Tonio also struggled with the balance, so we need to do more work with him to get more out of the car.'

Tonio Liuzzi

'Overall another long day with a few issues, but that is normal as we are testing some new parts and it is part of the course. Unfortunately we couldn't complete a lot of kilometres, which makes it difficult to get into the rhythm and get used to the car, but although it was a difficult day we did get some good information that we can carry forward for the next test.'

Testing data

Driver: Tonio Liuzzi
Track: Circuit de Catalunya, Spain
Best lap time: 1min 24.263
Laps completed: 61
Kilometres completed: 184km

-credit: fi