Force India happy with competitive Friday, but warry of amount of work to do
The Force India F1 Team today had a strong opening day of practice in advance of Sunday's Italian Grand Prix, the final race of the European season. Adrian Sutil recorded the fastest time of the day in the afternoon's second free practice session after setting an encouraging third quickest lap in the morning. His programme focussed on evaluating the VJM02 in low drag configuration, completing back to back tests of different wing levels and assessing the tyre options available this weekend.
Tonio Liuzzi, making his Force India race debut this weekend, completed 68 laps over the two sessions as he quickly got to grips with the VJM02 under racing conditions. His morning's best time, a 1:25.689, was the 16th quickest time of the morning while he finished the session with the 12th best lap following steady improvement over the day.
Adrian Sutil (car 20): "Everything went well today. The car was working perfectly and we can be very happy about the result. It was a very, very good time that came as a result of some good work, a great set-up and getting the tyres to work well. We didn't try specifically to go fastest but if you are on top of your game and the car is working well there's no reason why you couldn't be P1 at the end of the session. It was a very productive day on a very cool track and it's good to have some fun right now."
Tonio Liuzzi (car 21): "Today was much better than the straight line testing! It's a completely different approach as you get used to the rhythm, the braking points and I think it's a great challenge. We went for longer runs and covering a race distance and everything is going in the right direction. For now I am taking it a bit easy as I want to get used to the tyres and the car and tomorrow we will work on the lap time for qualifying. We knew we would have a competitive car and I felt the balance was good, and there is still at least half a second more as I had some traffic on some of my fastest laps. It's just the beginning of the weekend but I am really happy about how it went. I think the car is responding really well and we are optimistic for tomorrow."
Dominic Harlow, chief race engineer: "A very good first day back in a race seat for Tonio, and a productive programme from Adrian. We lost some time with Adrian's car at the start of FP2 following a planned engine change, but once back on track he made good progress. The car seems to be performing well at lower downforce in race trim, but as usual at this demanding circuit there is plenty of work to do to prepare for qualifying."
Adrian Sutil (car 20, VJM02/01):
FP1: 3rd 1:24.471 (24 laps)
FP2: 1st 1:23.924 (28 laps)
Tonio Liuzzi (car 21, VJM02/04):
FP1: 16th 1:25.689 (29 laps)
FP2: 12th 1:24.921 (39 laps)
