Hand injury won't deter Piscopo.

Edoardo Piscopo is determined not to let a hand injury picked up at this weekend's A1 Grand Prix round in Malaysia deter him from testing opportunities, either in the World Series by Renault or with the Ferrari F1 team

The Italian, who earned his F1 'break' by finishing as runner-up to Mirko Bortolotti the national F3 championship, recorded a strong qualifying performance at Sepang before going on to claim seventh place in race one at the Malaysian GP venue, but succumbed to problems with his hand in the longer feature race, which caused him to lose positions late on and finish outside the points in eleventh place.

With the biggest opportunity of his life scheduled for Thursday, however, Piscopo is hoping that the injury - the extent of which has not been revealed - will begin to ease and allow him to demonstrate his full potential, both at the Fiorano and, later in the week, at the World Series group test at Valencia's Circuit Ricardo Tormo.

"Unfortunately, I started suffering from a sore hand when I was fighting with [eventual sixth-place finisher Earl] Bamber," Piscopo revealed, "Without that problem, I'm sure
I could have kept the same pace until the end, as we continued to improve at Sepang, making some more steps towards the top.

"I won't be stopping though. I'll be at Ferrari today [Tuesday] to have a [seat] fitting and, then, after just one day of rest, I'll make my way around Fiorano in an F2008 race car. Then, after the test, I'll fly to Valencia for the World Series' collective sessions..."

Piscopo and Bortolotti will be joined at Fiorano by Salvatore Cicatelli, before flying in to join the Draco team for the World Series test. The Italian team claims to have already signed its drivers for 2009, but has yet to reveal the identity of either.