Technical problem and accident for Fisichella
Giancarlo Fisichella took over for the final day of the Force India Formula One Team's three-day test at the Hockenheimring. Following on from Adrian Sutil's progress over the past two days, Giancarlo worked on aero development, tyre comparisons and establishing a set-up for the German Grand Prix in just over a week's time.
Although the Italian's quickest lap was just one second slower than the day's fastest time, he completed just 74 laps over the day. The programme was curtailed in the morning following a fuel system failure at around 10:30, and then a heavy impact in the afternoon. Both caused some down time, however the team were able to complete the overall test programme.
The team will now return to its Silverstone HQ to reintegrate the test findings into its preparations for next week's German Grand Prix.
Dominic Harlow, chief race and test engineer: "We had much better weather today, which was more representative of the conditions we are likely to see in the race next week. The programme focussed on testing some aero development items, brakes and tyre comparisons and, despite the downtime, we were able to complete the test objectives. The two issues we had did not cause us too many problems; we had a fuel system failure in the morning and then the repairs following Giancarlo's accident took a couple of hours, but our programme was completed as part of preparations for the race here."
Giancarlo Fisichella: "It was a bit frustrating we could not do more running. In the morning we had the technical problem and had to stop for some time, then in the afternoon I had an accident. The rear of the car went away and I just lost control through the stadium complex. The car went across the road and there's not much run off area there so I went into the wall. I'm fine, but the car was quite badly damaged. The guys did a good job to get it out again for the last 30 minutes. Overall we are making some small improvements and moving forward. We will have to see how they work next weekend."
