Q & A with Tonio Liuzzi
Tonio Liuzzi had another frustrating qualifying session at Silverstone, with a puzzling lack of straightline speed leaving him 15th, and then a penalty for blocking Nico Hulkenberg costing him another five positions
AUTOSPORT heard his explanation of Saturday's events.
Q. It looks like the top speed problem is still there?
Tonio Liuzzi: It's a problem that we need to solve because there was just three tenths of a second between me and Adrian [Sutil] and most of that was in a straight line. It wasn't a great qualifying - we could have been maybe a couple of tenths close but we suffered with oversteer on the last set of tyres in Q2 but the lack of top speed wouldn't have allowed us to get into Q3. We were expecting maybe to get into Q3, but all of these issues didn't allow us to go that far.
But overall, we are P15 and we are not that far from the car ahead of us. But we got penalised five places for the thing with Hulkenberg so it won't be an easy race. It's a shame that the team's home race will be difficult but we like a fight!
Q. What happened when you held up Nico?
TL: It was at the end of Q2. I thought that he was coming out of the pits as I got a message from the team to stay in front because they thought that he was on an out-lap so I wanted to stay ahead. I don't think that I should have been penalised because I lost three races in qualifying because of Williams in the middle of the track this season. But we have to take it.
Q. You said yesterday that the top speed problem might be F-duct related. Have you understood more about the problem or is it just a recurrence of the problem you had with this chassis when you used it earlier in the season?
TL: We still don't have a clear idea. We believe that it was a bit of the two because we don't understand why it would be the chassis. There are some signs that the F-duct is maybe not working 100 per cent but there is not a big reason why. It's a big doubt that we have to solve for the next race.
Q. Is there a brand new chassis coming for you later in the year?
TL: No, at the moment we are not planning anything new. We need to work with what we have.
Q. What do you expect for the race?
TL: If the weather is like this, it won't be an easy race as points are difficult from 20th place. It's not a circuit where you can easily overtake so points are going to be a big challenge, but we try hard. There were some predictions for rain at the beginning of the weekend, which would maybe help, but we have to take it as it is.
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