Mar.10 (GMM) Vitantonio Liuzzi is looking to the future this week rather than back at a stop-start formula one career so far.
After being ousted by Force India despite having a 2011 contract, the 29-year-old Italian will complete the grid this season after signing a new deal with HRT just over a fortnight before the season opener.
Blick newspaper in Switzerland reports that he has been paid EUR 2 million in compensation by Force India.
He was asked by La Gazzetta dello Sport about the split.
“From my side, apart from many incidents of which many were not my fault, nothing went wrong.
“Only that I’m not the boss of the team and the one who puts the money in made another choice,” said Liuzzi, referring to Vijay Mallya’s decision to promote Paul di Resta.
“In any case, there is no reason to think about it anymore, and anyway we know that F1 is like that,” he added.
As for his new adventure at the back of the grid with the so far untested F111, Liuzzi said: “In my F1 career I’m used to starting from scratch and we’ll work twice as hard to find speed and reliability.
“I know full well that Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he added.
The first day of building will be the HRT car’s debut late this week in Barcelona, and almost immediately after that the first race in Australia.
“Of course it’s not a helpful situation; it’s a bit like a puzzle where we have to put all the pieces together now.”
Meanwhile, it emerges that Liuzzi is now working with a new manager, Enrico Zanarini, who is most famous for handling the careers of Eddie Irvine and Giancarlo Fisichella.
La Gazzetta dello Sport said Liuzzi has split with former Lotus boss Peter Collins, perhaps due to the Force India situation.
“With Peter, I worked for many years and I was fine with him; let’s say I wanted to start a new era,” said Liuzzi, who confirmed that in Zanarini “I think I’m with the right person”.
