Liuzzi: This time luck was not with us

As one of the drivers to lose out most under the safety car, Tonio Liuzzi had a frustrating afternoon in Valencia. The Italian was running in 12th, right on the tail of Adrian Sutil, when the safety car was dispatched. He had no choice but to follow his fellow Force India driver into the pits for a tyre change. Inevitably he had to wait for the crew to service Adrian’s car, and he then lost more precious time because Vitaly Petrov’s Renault blocked his exit. Stuck in traffic for the rest of the race, he crossed the line in 13th, but then lost three spots to a 5secs penalty. We asked him about his Spanish weekend and the upcoming trip to the team’s home race at Silverstone.

Q: How would you review your race?

It was really disappointing, because we were really sure that even starting far behind we would have had a strong pace and a strong race. From the start we had quite a lot of fights. On the first lap I passed Adrian, and when I was trying to overtake Michael Schumacher I ran wide and he passed me back. So that’s why he was ahead of me and he stopped before me.

Q: And you lost a lot of time in the pit stops under the safety car.

Yes, I was forced to queue, so we lost a lot of seconds and all of the positions there. Also Petrov was in the middle so I couldn’t get out of the pits straight once we finished. So I lost extra time because of that, and that’s what really ruined the race. We had a really good race pace, we were able to follow and push Rosberg every time, but it’s a track where it’s really difficult to overtake. He didn’t make any mistakes and didn’t give me any chance to try.

Q: So really it was just a case of bad luck?

These races can happen, there are always two or three races a year that are crazy like this. You need to be lucky in this situation, and this time luck was not with us. It will turn around in the future. For me the most important thing is we are showing that the pace is there. We had a strong Friday, a strong Saturday, and we just didn’t understand what happened in qualifying with the soft compound. We were heading for another Q3 and another points score at the end of the race. So we are looking forward to Silverstone, and we’ll try to bring some more updates.

Q: Silverstone is Force India’s home race, and the team is going there with a quick car. Are you looking forward to it?

Definitely it will be really important for the team to finish well and score points again. I think we are in a good position. With the changes to the track it will be a little bit new for everybody. I think the track is going towards our car, because it has got a much longer straight, and I think it should suit our car a bit better than before. That’s why we are really looking forward to going there.

Q: You haven’t raced at Silverstone since 2007. Is it a track you enjoy?

Usually it’s a circuit that I love. I liked Bridge and the complex, but now they’ve taken it away! But Becketts is great. I love all of Silverstone, and now they’ve changed it, I hope it will be possible to overtake. They’ve changed a lot of kerbs other corners, especially the first sector. In some places there are double kerbs like in Montreal, and that could be a bit dangerous in case of collision.

Q: Silverstone is exactly half way in the World Championship. How would you sum up your season so far?

I think if I look back we had some really strong races, and some bad ones. But we analysed the bad ones, like Barcelona and Turkey, and we found out the problems. The negative races had a reason. Overall once everything was fine we were top 10 and fast enough, and we had a really strong race pace. So I’m really positive, and I think the team is as well. I’m looking forward to the rest of the season, and I hope that a bit more luck comes towards us, and we can score like Adrian did on occasions like Valencia or Malaysia, when some top teams had problems. So we need a bit more luck, but for the rest, we are on the right way. We have to keep on pushing. We want to get fifth in the teams’ championship. We’re still trying to catch Renault, and even if they are always very strong, we’ll be trying until the end!