Ferrari evaluates new pack of components
It was another busy Friday workload for Scuderia Ferrari, with a little over 600 kilometres covered by the F2012s of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa. As usual, the two drivers worked on evaluating various aerodynamic configurations and studying the behaviour of the Pirelli tyres, running different fuel loads. The Maranello cars ran troublefree throughout.
As the Maranello squad strives to improve the performance of the F2012 for these final three races, more new parts have been making the trip from Italy to Abu Dhabi. These need to be evaluated thoroughly before deciding whether or not to run them for qualifying and the race and that means one thing – plenty of laps. Today, Felipe Massa completed 57, which is two more than Sunday’s race distance while Fernando Alonso did 52 on his way to seventh place by the end of the day, one spot higher up the FP2 timesheet than his team-mate.
Fernando Alonso, 4th:
“The day just ended was a Friday like any other, during which we got through everything on our programme. The morning session was dedicated to a comparison of various aerodynamic solutions, while in the afternoon, we concentrated on the tyres. Between the first and second sessions, the track changed a lot, which to be honest was predictable, because there aren’t many races here over the weekend: at the start, it seemed very dirty but then it improved a lot and tomorrow, it will definitely be even better.”
Felipe Massa, 11th:
“We got through everything on our job list, which is always a good thing, both in the first and second free practice sessions. We tested the tyres in the usual way – first on a low fuel load and then with a lot more - to evaluate them over a long run. From what we could see, over a long run we are reasonably competitive, but less so on a single flying lap. Sure, it would be better if we were a bit quicker, but we will see what the situation is when it really matters, which means to say tomorrow afternoon in qualifying.”
Pat Fry, Technical Director:
“We are pushing as hard as we can to bring updates to every race. Some of the ones we introduced here seem to be positive, but we must carefully evaluate their performance and then decide which to use in qualifying and the race. Felipe’s long run didn’t seem too bad, but clearly we have to improve our performance over a single lap if we want to start from the front row of the grid.”
