By Karl King
February 2 2008

Tonio Liuzzi took over from Giancarlo Fisichella in Barcelona today, but unfortunately did not continue the promise shown in yesterday's test where Fisi surprised us all by setting the fourth fastest time. Liuzzi completed 61 laps of the Spanish track and set a best time of 1m24.263, 2.584 seconds off the leading pace of STR's Sebastian Vettel.

Tonio's time was 0.304s slower than his nearest competitor, Jenson Button who's Honda team Force were comprehensively faster than in yesterday's test, the Italian struggling with a clutch and driveline problem interrupting his running.

'Overall another long day with a few issues', Liuzzi said, 'but that is normal as we are testing some new parts and it is part of the course.

'Unfortunately we couldn't complete a lot of kilometres, which makes it difficult to get into the rhythm and get used to the car, but although it was a difficult day we did get some good information that we can carry forward for the next test.'

The focus on today's work was set-up and work on engine installation and cooling. Chief technical officer, Mike Gascoyne, echoed Tonio's frustration, 'Today was a much more difficult day as we had a couple of mechanical issues, first with a clutch problem and then a driveshaft failure, and we couldn't quite get temperatures in the rear tyres so our apologies to Tonio for the disrupted running.

'Tonio also struggled with the balance, so we need to do more work with him to get more out of the car.'

Adrian Sutil will conclude the three day test tomorrow.