Tonio faster than Ralf - Force slowest

By Karl King
December 8 2007

Thursday saw Ralf Schumacher set the slowest time of all the 20 runners at Jerez in the Force India F1 car. The German's fastest time, a 1m21.853 was 0.659s slower than that of Tonio Liuzzi who was running in the other Force car - his fastest lap put him only one position ahead of Ralf. On a day marred by long red flag periods, it was Robert Kubica withe the fastest time, a 1m19.157

Ralf said, "It was a difficult day today as it was my first time with the team and I had to learn about how to work with the 2008 electronics. Unfortunately we had some problems with the car in the morning and then lots of red flags in the afternoon, but when we went for the long runs it was quite promising. When we had some new tyres on, unfortunately in the morning we didn't get it right, and the second was interrupted by a red flag. Although it was a difficult day, it was still good and I think we did get some good information."

Tonio added, 'It was positive and I am happy with the work we did. Unfortunately there were a lot of red flags so we couldn't run our second set of tyres to the full extent, but I am happy with the car balance and the way we worked together. We did some long runs and didn't find a perfect set up, but now for sure we have a lot of work to do on the car. I felt I did the maximum though."

Techincal director James Key concluded, 'Overall it was a difficult day with several stoppages, however this morning was quite productive. Tonio got a fair few laps in and gave some good feedback, which seemed to take the car in the right direction and his shorter runs were consistent. For Ralf it was more difficult as we had some issues with the car initially, which unfortunately slowed things down, especially as it was his first time with the team and his first without control systems. Over the longer runs it came together pretty well for him though and he was very consistent. Once again though it has been a very useful day of feedback for the team from experienced drivers.'

The team concludes the test on Friday with Rodriguez and van der Garde.