Productive day for Force India
Fresh from a successful three-day test at the circuit last week, the Force India Formula One Team again showed well at the Circuit de Catalunya in today's opening practice sessions for the Spanish Grand Prix. Both VJM01 cars featured strongly throughout the two one and a half hour sessions, with Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil both finishing the second practice in the top ten.
In the opening practice the duo focussed on longer runs with the harder tyre option available this weekend before moving on to fine-tune the Qualifying set-up in the afternoon. Despite the typical Barcelona changeable weather conditions that saw the wind picking up over the day, Giancarlo and Adrian's first runs in the second session were enough to put them first and second on the time sheets for the first 30 minutes. The pair then moved to concentrate on longer runs and eventually finished the session with ninth and tenth fastest laps.
After a final practice tomorrow, Qualifying will start at 14:00hrs local time, in which the team is hopeful of getting to Q2 for the first time since 2006.
Adrian Sutil: "Today was not bad. I think we started quite well, although the track conditions were very different to testing. We just lost a lot of grip from last week so this morning was OK, but this afternoon was even better. We put on some new tyres and did some new tyre runs in the second session and the balance was very good. I was quite happy, but then later on the wind increased and although the longer runs were not bad, I was not happy with the balance. On the last run of the day it was not as I expected: the wind just changed and I couldn't really react to it so the last runs could have been better for sure, but overall it was an improvement over the last three races. Step by step we are getting better."
Giancarlo Fisichella: "The car balance in the afternoon was especially good. In the morning we had a lot of understeer, but there was a big difference between today and the test. Today there was in general much less grip, more understeer and wheelspin, so this morning I was struggling a little bit. In the afternoon I was happier and we went in the right direction. It's too early to say definitively but it doesn't look too bad."
Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer: "Another productive day for us with no major mechanical issues on the car. The circuit had a lot less grip than the test last week as we expected, but we worked through our programme of evaluating both sets of tyres and set-up work. Conditions in the second session were quite tricky as the wind got up and the track temperature increased, but overall I think we are a lot more competitive than we expected to be, so we should look to have a very strong weekend."
