Formula One news

Good day for Force India

Force India's Monaco Grand Prix preparations continued today at the Paul Ricard HTTT track in the south of France. Adrian Sutil took over from Tonio Liuzzi for the morning's run on the 2D-SC configuration of the track, designed to simulate the bumpy, twisty conditions of the Principality. Giancarlo Fisichella drove in the afternoon to have the opportunity to evaluate the new aero package that will be introduced for the next race of the season. 

Dominic Harlow, chief race and test engineer commented, "Both race drivers used the day for Monaco preparation working on general setup, tyre evaluation and getting another read on some of the development items that were started on the first day. No major problems aside from a light rain shower at lunchtime. We will move to work on Canada simulation tomorrow, but always with an eye to the weather."

Adrian Sutil commented, "This morning went without any problems and we ran through our programme to prepare for Monaco. We tried the tyre options available for the race and again with the softer tyre we struggled to get the temperature into them on the first lap. There is some bad graining and it's not easy to drive, but we have managed to work with them better than we did in Turkey. The aero package for Monaco feels good and, although you can never completely tell how it will perform on a different circuit with different corners and surfaces, it does make you more prepared and you can predict in certain circumstances what it will do. Tomorrow we will move to the longer circuit and the Canada package with longer straights and some more chicanes."

Giancarlo Fisichella added, "We made some progress today with the Monaco set-up. We had some problems with understeer and tyre graining at some points, but this also happens during the race too, so we could prepare for it. We didn't have any major problems and could put a lot of mileage on the parts for next week, so it looks good."

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