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Formula One
F1: Di Grassi Endures Difficult First Day
Lucas di Grassi knows he has a long weekend ahead...
Adam Cooper  | http://www.speedtv.com  |  Posted March 12, 2010   Sakhir (BHR)
Lucas di Grassi must wait another week for a new Virgin car. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Lucas di Grassi had a difficult first day Friday with the new Virgin team in Bahrain, completing a few laps in the morning and finishing ahead of only the HRT car of countryman Bruno Senna in the afternoon.

Di Grassi is one of five drivers making their Grand Prix debuts this weekend, after four seasons in GP2.

“For me it is a great honor to be here in F1,” he said. “It is my first races as official driver, so there has been a lot of work, a lot of effort to arrive in this position, so I am just enjoying every minute I am in the car, trying to learn as much as I can and trying to evolve as a driver. It is a great feeling.

“I had pretty much a difficult start to the day in P1. I had some small issue in the car which did not allow me to do many laps and I need more mileage. Everything got back to a good position in P2 as I did quite a good run with both sets of tires and we were able to do a different set-up change, so it helped a lot.”

Di Grassi says he knows that the rest of the weekend is going to be tough.

“Everybody in the team is pushing really hard. As everybody knows the car came together months ago and we had a lot of problems in testing, so our main reason to be here and our main way of development is to get everything done properly and with it on time.

“We are not rushing anything. We are making sure the car is having the best performance. The team is working very, very hard and the team worked all night last night, so everyone is giving 100 per cent and I am trying to do the same when I am driving.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 25th season as a racing journalist in 2009. Born in London, England, he saw his first F1 race at age 10 in 1976. He began freelancing for Autosport magazine in 1985 and was on the fulltime staff from 1987-92. He then went freelance again, initially spending two years in Japan before following the 1994 Champcar series from a base in Indianapolis. He has not missed a Grand Prix since Suzuka ‘94, a run that has extended to Abu Dhabi ’09. Adam has written books about Eddie Irvine, Piers Courage and Michael Schumacher and hosts a race preview show on Sirius XM. He has written about F1 for SPEEDtv.com since 2005. Check out Adam's Blog or follow him on Twitter

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