VJM01 runs first day without major problems

The Force India Formula One Team today debuted two VJM01 cars at the Circuit de Catalunya. Tonio Liuzzi and Adrian Sutil were on driving duties for the opening day of the three-day test and, despite the grey, rainy weather conditions, worked through the majority of the scheduled shakedown of the cars.

With this being the debut running of the VJM01, the focus today for both drivers was understanding the behaviour of the new aero package. The team made good progress over the day, working through different set-up options to maximise the balance on the car. Once again, the team set competitive times with the rest of the field, with Tonio recording the 12th fastest time of the day and Adrian the 9th quickest.

Tonio will continue for a further day of testing tomorrow, while Giancarlo Fisichella will take over from Adrian.

Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer: "Today was a very productive day today considering we were running new parts and an aero package we hadn't tested before. We were running 60% of the aero package we will use in Australia, and it seemed to go well. Despite the usual red flag periods and bad weather conditions, we managed to do a fair few laps with Adrian, but unfortunately we had an unscheduled engine change for Tonio's car over lunch, which cut short his time. Although both drivers initially had some understeer issues, we seemed to understand it by the end of the day and all things considered it was a good opening day to the test. I think we can expect more tomorrow."

Adrian Sutil: "It was not a bad day today. I think the car ran without any major problems and the balance we got in the end was quite OK. We had some small issues, first with getting heat into the tyres and then the pressure so it was not perfect, but we should be happy. For the first day with a new car I am confident as I can feel there is something more to come."

Tonio Liuzzi "It was a pretty difficult day as we did not run that much as we had quite a few problems in the afternoon. It was also a shame that the weather was not better and we could not do too many laps. The balance, considering the conditions seemed OK, and the few laps we did in the dry seemed a step forward from last year's car. It felt a bit more balanced and we still have to understand more on the settings, but from the few laps we did in the dry it was quite a good feeling."

Testing data
Driver: Adrian Sutil & Tonio Liuzzi
Track: Circuit de Catalunya, Spain
Best lap time: 1min 23.091 (Adrian) / 1min 23.239 (Tonio)
Laps completed: 100 (59 Adrian, 41 Tonio)
Kilometres completed 465km