STR boss Gerhard Berger says he was the man behind Mika Hakkinen’s recent McLaren test, and even thanks Ron Dennis for saving him money.

“Mika got a drive at the cost of Ron, and that made me smile a bit! It worked out quite well. If I convinced him to drive a car, then it would have cost me. But at the same time Ron ran him, so the problem was fixed.”

Berger also insisted that Hakkinen’s slow pace at the test was not a true indicator of his performance.

“I looked at the lap times and gathered he was not into serious testing. I believe that if he gets serious about it, then I think he would be very close to proper lap times. But not at this stage.”

Meanwhile STR driver Tonio Liuzzi insists he is not worried by Champ Car champion Sebastien Bourdais’ recent test for the team.

“Bourdais probably thought he would get here and show everyone up,” Liuzzi told Autosprint magazine. “In actual fact, even if by a small margin, I was faster than him over the two days and the gap could have been larger if I hadn’t had traction control problems with the new tyres.”

Neither Liuzzi or teammate Scott Speed have yet been confirmed at STR, with plenty of rumours flying around that at least one of them will be replaced for 2007.