September 08, 2004
FinOz Racing Kari Koski will drive a completely different chassis at this weekend's Italian Grand Prix following his disappointing seventh place at the last round in Belgium.

Koski started the Belgian weekend in impressive fashion, taking second place in qualifying. However he struggled for pace in the race and failed to keep up with the leaders, finishing the race in 7th place and scoring only 2 points for the team and for himself. Team mate Steve Elencevski blasted through the field from 9th place on the grid to win the race.

Koski explained his slowish Hungarian and Belgian GP's

"I struggled at Hungary in qualifying and the race wasn't that better either. The car just felt weird and I didn't have faith in it at all. At one point car was pushing and then suddenly the back end was very loose. It was a nightmare because you can't fix that with setup change.

Belgium things were better, but again at the race I had the same problem and lost a lot of time. When car was working and tyres were new all went fine but soon with some tyre wear car was all over the place again."

"In giving him a different chassis, built with completely different parts, we want to eliminate the possibility that some hidden problem in the car is affecting his performance," said the teams Technical Director.

"We were planning to build new cars for the French GP anyway so we completed Kari's car for the Monza and Steve will have new car for Magny-Cours if he wants. For Steve, it's a case of why fix something that isn't broken?" Technical Director added after Elencevski had won now two races in a row.

"Our approach to the forthcoming Grand Prix is a reflection of our total commitment to supporting equally both drivers. From the team's perspective, it is vitally important to extract maximum performance from both cars and drivers until the end of the season."

Koski, meanwhile, is confident that the new chassis will help him return to form in Italy. "When you have a result like Spa, you need to have the confidence in yourself to bounce back, and I do," he said. "This is one of my favorite tracks, so I will have a lot motivation, not pressure".

"I am sure things will go much better in Monza. The team have responded brilliantly to build a completely new car for this race, so I just hope I can get back to a normal level of performance at this race. All points I can score for the team will be very important."

FinOz heads to Monza lying second in the Constructor's standings on 96 points, 12 ahead of arch rivals EIRE and some 32 points behind the leading Mapes-VO team.