Alonso 'reasonably pleased' with F138
Ferrari was back on track today in testing, this time with Fernando Alonso behind the wheel of the F138. Alonso made his first outing this year today and lapped 110 times around Circuit de Catalunya. Afterwards, the Spaniard seemed rather optimistic about the new car.
The entire day was dedicated almost entirely to acquiring data for use in the development of the car and on gaining a greater understanding of the Pirelli tyres. Fernando completed a total of 110 laps, with a best time of 1.19.952.
Fernando Alonso: “I feel reasonably pleased with this first day and I can say I share Felipe’s opinion that the car is on another planet compared to the one we began with on the first day of testing last year. The programme for this first session in Barcelona is aimed mainly at improving reliability, with the target of completing more than a hundred laps every day. Then, at next week’s test we can concentrate on performance. Tomorrow, we will complete what we were unable to do today and we will focus on car set-up, to adapt it as well as possible to the tyres. I knew from looking at the Jerez data what sort of car I would find here today, as in fact we know more or less what we will see at the first race in Australia, in terms of what new parts we will have and how many tenths they will produce. This is down to all the work done over the winter in the wind tunnel and the numerous tests which confirm that the parts that are on their way will give the expected results.”
Testing continues tomorrow at this track, again with Alonso at the wheel of the Ferrari.
Weather: air temperature 13/17°C, track temperature 13/28 °C. Cloudy in the morning, then sunny in the afternoon.
