Difficult day for Ferrari
“Difficult” is the word that best describes the Singapore Friday for the Scuderia Ferrari at the Marina Bay Circuit. Kimi Raikkonen ended FP2 fourteenth, with Giancarlo Fisichella two places behind his team-mate.
Rather a difficult first day of practice for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro: at the end of FP2, Kimi Raikkonen was fourteenth and Giancarlo Fisichella was sixteenth. “Clearly, when evaluating today’s free practice times, one has to consider the various unknown factors, but it is equally clear that our situation looks pretty difficult,” said Stefano Domenicali. “Besides, if so many other teams continue to bring significant technical updates to the track, while for the past two months we have frozen the development of the F60, then we can expect to find ourselves in this situation. All the same, we must now concentrate on ourselves and try and make the most of the package we have, as indeed we have done in the past few races: if we do a good job, we have seen that the results can follow.”
Giancarlo Fisichella: “It was a rather difficult day. The car is very nervous and I have yet to find the ideal set-up. Now, I must sit down with the team to try and prepare as well as possible for qualifying and the race. My aim is to improve on my result from Monza, but I know that won’t be easy. The track was very slippery and sometimes I had a bit of graining on the tyres. Unfortunately, I never managed to do a long run with the soft tyres, because of the red flags following Webber’s accident: this compound is definitely quicker by three to four tenths, but there is a question mark over the consistency of its performance.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “It was a Friday like any other. We had a number of little problems with the car, but overall, we were able to get through the programme we had set ourselves. As for the times, there is always a question mark over the various fuel loads: we will see tomorrow what we can do in qualifying. Today is too soon to say if we can be in a position to fight for a podium finish as we have done in recent races. The softer tyres degrade more quickly, at least from what we could see today. It’s hardly surprising and usually, bit by bit, as the track rubbers in, the situation improves.”
Chris Dyer: “Today’s performance was definitely nothing to get excited about. The interruption to the session complicated the running of our planned programme, but overall we have gathered sufficient data to be as well prepared as possible for qualifying and the race. Tomorrow, our aim is to get both cars through to Q3: it won’t be easy, but we will do our best. Both types of tyre showed some signs of degradation today, which makes the choice for the race even harder. From what we have seen, I also expect to see different tyre strategies employed in qualifying.”
First Session
K. Raikkonen: 9° 1.50.865 19 Laps
G. Fisichella: 17° 1.52.390 24 Laps
Second Session
K. Raikkonen: 14° 1.49.941 29 Laps, Chassis 279
G. Fisichella: 16° 1.50.253 31 Laps, Chassis 280
