Press Release follows :

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.

The duo worked through a schedule of chassis development, general set-up work and continuing evaluation of the new-for-2008 standard ECU package, under which traction control is banned. In the afternoon, Fisichella also tried the ‘slick’ Bridgestone Potenza development tyre. Although the day went without major drama, the day was marred by several red flag periods and some minor mechanical issues and spins from both drivers, however with three further days of testing, the team is optimistic of completing its overall programme.

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.

Team quotes
Mike Gascoyne, chief technical officer

‘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. 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.’

Giancarlo Fisichella
‘It’s my first day back in the car nearly two months after the last race in Brazil, plus my first with another car and new engine, and of course without the electronics. Considering this I am quite happy about how the day went though. We did have a couple of issues so I didn’t run as much as I would have liked; with new tyres I had a problem with the hydraulic pressure, and when I tried out the slick tyres there was a problem on the diff so we didn’t get a proper idea of how the tyres will work. All the same I do think it’s been a positive day though and a good basis for tomorrow.’

Franck Montagny
‘It’s been a good day. We did have a bit of bad luck with our new tyre runs though – we had two new sets of tyres, and with the first set I stopped and the other there was a red flag. It was good fun and nice to work with the team. It was interesting to see how everyone works and I think we did quite a reasonable job together. Unfortunately the track is quite hard on tyres and we had a lot of degradation, which doesn’t help you do all the set up work we wanted to do today, but I enjoyed it all the same and I think the team got some useful information. Thank you to them for letting me have this opportunity.’

Testing data

Copyright Images : Peter J Fox/Crash MediaÂ