Force India Jerez test notes 2008-01-14

LIUZZI OPENS TEST FOR FORCE INDIA IN JEREZ
Jerez Test - Day one

14 January 2008 - Tonio Liuzzi completed his first official day of duty for the Force India Formula One Team today as he opened the team's three-day test at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit in southern Spain.

After a wet start to the day, Force India - again running in its interim burgundy and white colour scheme - pushed on with its programme of getting to grips with the new 2008 electronic package. Tonio completed 47 laps, the small number a knock-on effect of the numerous red flag periods that punctuated the day. Tonio was also hampered by minor hydraulic issues in the morning and the afternoon's running, which again limited the mileage the team could achieve. His best lap was a 1:23.035, set in the afternoon.

Giancarlo Fisichella will take over from Tonio for tomorrow's running, with Adrian Sutil getting behind the wheel for the final day of testing on Wednesday.

Team quotes

Mike Gascoyne , chief technical officer
'A reasonably productive day of testing, and good to shake out the cobwebs and start again in 2008. As the morning was wet we did some running in both wet and dry conditions, but we had a couple of hydraulic issues throughout the day that limited the lap count. Overall though a reasonably useful day and it was good to start working with Tonio, who did a very good job for the team.'

Vitantonio Liuzzi
'We have improved from the last test we did here and the car seemed to respond better than last time, so that was already better. It was quite a difficult day though as we had a few mechanical problems and we had to wait in the garage for a while, so we didn't put in too many laps, but the few laps we did I think were pretty positive. It was just unfortunate that the issues stopped us doing some more, but it is a three day test and we can look forward to some more development. We are going in the right direction and still have a lot of work to do.'

Testing data

Driver: Vitantonio Liuzzi
Track: Jerez de la Frontera, Spain
Best lap time: 1min 23.035
Laps completed: 47
Kilometres completed 208km
Air temperature: High of 16ºC
Track temperature: High of 18ºC
Weather: Wet start followed by scattered clouds but dry

-credit: force india