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TORO ROSSO

Liuzzi blames Berger's lack of faith

Friday 15th February 2008

Tonio Liuzzi has slammed Gerhard Berger for his lack of faith, blaming the STR co-owner for him being without a 2008 race-seat.

Toro Rosso dropped Liuzzi at the end of last season when the team opted against extending his contract. Although no reasons for given for the decision it was widely speculated that the Toro Rosso bosses were disappointed with the Italian's lack of results during his two-year stay.

The decision not to re-sign him also left Liuzzi without a race-seat for this year's Championship, resulting in him taking a test driver role with Force India in order to stay in F1.

And although Liuzzi believes his new team has a lot of potential, that doesn't mean he's forgiven his former team boss Berger for his lack of faith in him.

"I had alternatives: a new NASCAR team offered me to race in the Busch series, I could have had a couple of Champ Car tests, but I preferred to concentrate on the Force India programme, even if only as a test driver," Liuzzi told Autosprint magazine.

"That's because the potential of this team is big, and I count on being back in a racing role in the medium term.

"After all, if I found myself without a drive at the end of 2007, it was most of all the fault of Gerhard Berger, who has never been a fan of mine, just like Adrian Newey, who in the past blocked my arrival as a regular Red Bull driver.

"F1 is a strange world, where the way you're perceived can change very quickly. When I won the F3000 title everyone was looking for me, they'd say I was the driver of the future, but things later turned for the worse.

"Let's not forget that Toro Rosso is not Red Bull, but it's rather Minardi with a new ownership. I'm sorry to have left the Red Bull orbit most of all for Dietrich Mateschitz, who has always believed in me. I can't say the same about others."

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