Despite ambient air temperatures hovering in the mid-90 degree Fahrenheit mark, in the final afternoon timed practice session on Friday, March 14, 2008, Force India driver Giancarlo Fisichella broke into the top 10 and gave the team plenty to be optimistic about for this Sunday’s Formula 1 ING Australian Grand Prix. In the new Ferrari 056-powered Force India VJM01 — a heavily modified version of the former Spyker F8-VII — Fisichella, age 35, hustled the VJM01 around the 3.30-mile, 16-turn track, the most impressive lap of his 32-lap run flashing up on the timing monitors at 1:28.469. It was the ninth fastest lap of all on Friday, and slotted the Italian into ninth, ahead of Toyota driver Timo Glock (1:28.582) and just behind the Williams-Toyota of Nico Rosberg (1:28.352). Even more encouraging was the fact that Fisichella’s lap was only 1.910 seconds adrift of Lewis Hamilton, who posted the fastest lap of all in his McLaren-Mercedes at 1:26.559.

"We said that Force India would make steady progress and I think we demonstrated it today," proudly proclaimed team owner Vijay Mallya to Autosport.com. "A lot of work has gone in during the winter and the tests that we did over the winter period have taught us a lot.

"Giancarlo Fisichella has been a tremendous addition to the team, his feedback has certainly helped the engineers accelerate the development of the car and the set-up," continued Mallya. “So overall the package is looking much, much better and it's showing in the timings. How much further we can go is a matter of time...but over the course of the year I'm still confident that we will make improvement. We are going the right way and I'm delighted about it."

Fisichella, a race winning driver in Formula 1, hopes he can make reach the Q2 sector of qualifying on Saturday, gleefully adding: "I had set a target of Q2 during the mid-season of 2008. If we can get it done in the first race, nothing would make me happier.”