Formula One news

Force India auditions continue at Jerez

Giancarlo Fisichella and Franck Montagny kicked off the first day of the Force India Formula One Team's test programme today at the Circuit de Jerez, southern Spain. Both drivers made their debut runs in the team's burgundy and white challengers to aid the team with its extensive development programme this week.

In total the team covered 118 laps, more than 500km, with both drivers evenly matched throughout the day. Fisichella finished a shade quicker with a lap of 1:21.424, set on the slick tyres, while Montagny's best lap was a 1:21.559.

Fisichella will remain in the car for a second day's testing, while Montagny hands over the wheel to Austrian Christian Klien tomorrow.

"Today was a slightly frustrating day of testing, with many red flags and a couple of minor mechanical issues on the cars, which meant we didn't get through our whole programme," said chief technical officer Mike Gascoyne. "We did still manage to get some useful information from the two drivers however. Giancarlo worked on basic set up and continued electronic systems development and, at the end of the day, was able to do a preliminary run on the 2009 tyres which gave us some good information. Franck was working on electronic development and some set up parameters plus damper work and similarly gave us excellent feedback. Once again it was very useful to have this feedback from two professional drivers with experience of other cars."

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