Room for improvement at Ferrari
The first two sessions of free practice for the Australian Grand Prix confirmed that the rule changes introduced this year have jumbled up the pack. "One cannot really draw hasty conclusions after just three hours of free practice, but the first signs seem to support what we saw during winter testing," commented Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro Team Principal, Stefano Domenicali.
"The pecking order that had established itself in recent years seems to have been overturned and we now find ourselves up against different and more numerous rivals. We did a lot of kilometres, pretty much completing the planned programme and now we have to carefully study all the data gathered. The most important data that catches the eye today concerns tyre management, which this year as never before, seems rather delicate: the softer tyres seem to degrade considerably over a distance, while the harder ones suffer from a lack of grip. We knew this to be the case and we have to concentrate on this problem and on how to improve the overall performance of the F60," Domenicali concluded.
Felipe Massa: "We are more or less okay with the set up, although there is still room to improve the performance. I was not able to do a time on the soft tyres in the second session as I made a mistake because of oversteer: in this phase we had a different balance on the car compared to when we had used the hard tyres, which proved not to be the ideal choice. On top of that, towards the end of the session, the wind got up a bit, which definitely did not help. Tomorrow, with everyone on the same fuel load, we will see what the situation is."
Kimi Raikkonen: "This morning, the car went well, while in the afternoon, we didn't manage to find a satisfactory set up, even though we tried various solutions. I think there is every chance we can improve our performance, but I can't say by how much compared to the others. Today, it's difficult to say where we are compared to them and we will see after tomorrow's qualifying."
Luca Baldisserri: "The first Friday of the season always throws up some surprises and that is even more than usual the case this year, given the numerous rule changes. Today, we did a lot of running and had no technical problems: reliability will be one of the dominant themes of the championship and it will be vital to try and pick up points every time. In these three hours of free practice, we saw that our performance over a long run seems to be very consistent but we have to see how to improve outright performance for tomorrow's qualifying."
Free practice - First Session
F. Massa: 7th 1.27.642 24 laps 275 chassis
K. Raikkonen: 3rd 1.26.750 24 laps 276 chassis
Free practice - Second Session
F. Massa: 10th 1.27.064 35 laps 275 chassis
K. Raikkonen: 11th 1.27.204 32 laps 276 chassis
