Busy first day for Force India
The newly-formed Force India F1 Team completed its first-ever kilometres today on the first day of its three-day test programme at the Circuit de Catalunya, Spain. Bearing its striking interim colour scheme of burgundy and white, Force India completed just under 800km, the most of any team participating at the test.
Roldan Rodriguez and Giedo van der Garde both used former Spyker F8-VII cars fitted with the 2008 standard electronics package, in which traction control and other driver aids are no longer permitted, and focussed on accumulating data on this new system.
With its lap time an average of just 1.5secs slower than the 2007 car, Force India was pleased with its productive day's running and with the establishment of a strong baseline for the remaining two days of the test.
Adrian Sutil will take over one chassis for tomorrow's programme, while Vitantonio Liuzzi and Christian Klien will share the second car.
Dominic Harlow, chief race and test engineer "The team resumed testing just four weeks after the end of the 2007 season in Barcelona with two cars and a very busy three-day programme. For 2008 F1 cars must use a standard electronic control system for the engine and chassis, making traction control and other driver aids of recent years a thing of the past. There is obviously a tremendous amount of work to understand and re-optimise the cars around the new system, and we feel today was a very positive start. Giedo and Roldan did exactly what was asked of them today, completing more laps between them than any other team here, and laying the foundations for the rest of the week's programme."
Roldan Rodriguez "I think the test was pretty good. It was my first real day of testing after the 50km shakedowns I have done and at first I felt it was not easy to go to the limit. Overall though I think it went pretty smoothly and we got in lots of running. We now know where we are with the new electronics, which is positive for the rest of the test."
Giedo van der Garde "It was a good day today, especially considering we were running without traction control and anti lock. At the beginning of the day the car had a little understeer, but we worked hard over the day and we can be pretty happy with the way it went as it's not easy to get used to the car's handling. Although we didn't use new tyres or do any low fuel runs, we did get lots of information on the electronics package, which was the goal for today. It's been a while since I've been in the car as the last time was in Spa, but I soon got used to it again and I'm pleased with what we achieved."
