Sutil tests exhaust blown diffuser as Liuzzi concentrates on tyres
The Force India F1 Team's Hungarian Grand Prix preparations got underway today with the opening two free practice sessions at the twisty, undulating Hungaroring on the outskirts of the capital city of Budapest.
With Adrian Sutil giving the team's new blown diffuser its initial outing, his programme was focussed on gathering as much data as possible. Paul di Resta, replacing Tonio Liuzzi for the first session, completed his first laps of the Hungaroring, with his schedule consisting of circuit familiarisation and the establishment of a good baseline set-up for the weekend. The Scot ran the 'normal' diffuser, allowing the team to complete back to back evaluation with the blown diffuser.
Tonio was back in his regular chassis for the second of the practice sessions and continued Paul's programme of set-up and aero work.
Adrian Sutil (car 14): "Today my main goal was to get as much running as possible with the new blown diffuser. We made very good progress in this regard and didn't have any real problems with it, which is a major achievement given how big a component it is to introduce. It seemed to work quite well with the various mappings, and also the temperatures look under control so we can be quite confident in it. But in general we didn't get the best out of the car today. We are struggling a little on the softer tyre and neither Tonio nor myself could improve from the hard tyre. There doesn't seem to be a peak with it, unlike the hard tyre that you know will peak and come in, but it's much more difficult to understand where we are with the soft one. We'll continue to look at it and hope that we can improve tomorrow."
Tonio Liuzzi (car 15): "As always in Hungary the circuit was quite low grip in the second session, although it looked pretty clean. It was very slippery in places but it should improve for tomorrow as more rubber gets laid down. For now the balance is quite good, particularly on the hard tyre, but we need to understand why we didn't improve on the soft compound. It's going to be a tough weekend for us, but we've done some productive running today and will look at everything overnight to try and find some more time tomorrow."
Paul di Resta (test and reserve driver): "Today was my first outing at the Hungaroring so I necessarily spent a fair bit of time learning the track. It's quite a complicated one to get to grips with and get into a good rhythm, with a lot of corners that flow into each other with no real rest. The average speed is quite slow as well so you're not getting the full effect of the cars as you would at a track like Silverstone. All the same, I really enjoyed being out there. The track was low grip to start with but the grip level slowly improved and we were able to run through all the programme. I wasn't running the blown diffuser so it is difficult to compare directly how I did relative to Adrian, but I am pretty happy with how it went today."
Dominic Harlow, chief race engineer: "An interesting day here in Hungary as we learned a great deal about our exhaust blown diffuser with Adrian whilst Tonio concentrated on the tyre evaluations. Initial indications are positive. The circuit was in quite good shape at the start of the day and, as the temperatures increased the grip became a bit harder to find. We can improve the balance a bit more for tomorrow, and things are very tight in our area of the field so it's really a question of examining the data and going forward from there."
Adrian Sutil (car 14, VJM03/03):
FP1: 11th 1:23.003 (19 laps)
FP2: 16th 1:22.507 (22 laps)
Tonio Liuzzi (car 15, VJM03/01):
FP1: Did not participate
FP2: 18th 1:23.138 (36 laps)
Paul di Resta (car 15, VJM03/01)
FP1: 15th 1:23.520 (19 laps)
FP2: Did not participate
