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Formula Sprint 2
Japanese Grand Prix
Suzuka International Racing Course
Tuesday 2nd of April 2024 19:00:00
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February 10, 2004
The FinOz team held a press conference after the recent Austrian pre-season test, and each of the three drivers present provided feedback to the F1VWC News team on the progress made:-

Steve Elencevski's comments from Day 1 session:

"I'm actually glad it rained! We really need the practise in wet conditions & I was quite pleased with my days testing. I did a series of long runs with a fair bit of fuel onboard & tyres (hard wets) that we're wearing out very quickly & the lap times we're very encouraging. We are slowly but surely improving with each session & should be in good shape come Melbourne."

Kari Koski's comments from Day 2 & 3 sessions:

"These two test days were very important for me and for the whole team. We gained a lot good information from our car and tyres on wet track and have to say I'm very impressed the way car was going and what the times were.

Thursday was still a learning day of the wet racing, finding the lines and getting the braking done correctly.

Friday I was more relaxed and was able to get good laps done right out of the pitlane from lap one. At the end I went on low fuel and a new set of great Michelin wet tyres and just went for it. Have to say I was loving every single lap behind the wheel."

Juha's comments from his action packed Day 4 session:

"Well.. what would I say, today was difficult for me and the team. After few laps i had an off and went to grass what was very wet and after that there wasn`t much that I could do, I became a passenger. Luckily car didn`t damaged too badly and team could fix it. This is racing and in racing this kinda things happen sometime, as a driver you just have to do everything that you can to make sure that these kinda things doesn`t happen too often." (Click here for details of Juha's crash).

"Overall the test session went quite well, we got our testing criteria completed and had quite much of new information that how our car behaves on wet circuit.

Michelin wet weather tyres are already very good already at point of pre-season and I believe that Michelin wet tyres will give us some advantage in the wet weather sessions in the season.

Car felt also very good, we got some new parts to the car after Monza and it seems that we have gone to the right way. Ferrari has done a very good job with the engine development. But this doesn`t mean that there wouldnt be lot of work to do before the season starts, but already at this point of off-season I'm very confident that we can achieve those objectives what we have set to pre-season development program.

Well I think that's all this time. See you guys in Magny-Cours later this week."

Next up France and Magny-Cours, new track for the team, new track for the car, new challenge. But if everything goes like it has gone before, we should be up high on the results table once again.