Liuzzi looks for slow start, big finish

By Andrew Cutler
March 5 2007

Now that he has had a chance to try out the STR2, Vitantonio Luzzi is talking about the car's - and the team's - potential for the upcomming F1 season. While admitting that the late start to testing will hurt in the early GP weekends, he thinks that late season will be another story entirely.

With Scuderia Toro Rosso having lost a month's testing time in comparison to some of the other teams while waiting for the STR2 to be finished, Liuzzi seems resigned to "write off" the first few races as long testing/developement sessions. “This (the late start) is the reason why we will certainly struggle at the beginning of the season, as we try to find all the best solutions for the car that we should have searched for during the pre-season tests,” he told the official Formula 1 website. “Starting so late we will have to do it at the races.”

In spite of this view, he says that the suprising form that the car showed in the closing days of the Bahrain tests gives him hope for a shot at being a mid-pack contender by mid-season. “Even if we will struggle at the beginning of the season I expect to score points and make a big step forward on the grid in the middle of the season,” he said. "We will be competitive…you will see!”