Friday: Ferrari remains on guard

Fernando Alonso – 2nd and 1st

« As usual on Fridays, the times don’t mean much because we don’t know everyone’s programs and especially because rain is forecast for Sunday: the data acquired today might not be of much help.

We followed our program, trying different types of tires and various aerodynamic solutions. It was definitely one of our best Fridays—it doesn’t happen often to see our cars in the top five—but it is also true that we were just as fast on Thursday and Saturday morning in Monaco, and then in qualifying, we found ourselves 9 tenths behind the Red Bulls: that’s where they show their true potential, and that’s why they remain our main rivals along with McLaren and Mercedes, who seem very strong here.

We saw different accidents, probably while the drivers were on long stints. It’s difficult to drive in these conditions and there are three or four spots here where the slightest mistake sends you into the wall.

During the race, I expect the safety car to play its role. Once again, it seems that the soft tires are made for us as well as the new compound [proposed for development], which should make its debut in Valencia and which, even though I only did five laps with them, left me with good sensations.

This circuit could allow us to make better use of the DRS than others, between turns 10 and 12 and then on the pit straight, I think it will work well during the race.

Unfortunately, the red flags came out during my stint on super soft tires and, in the end, we had to modify our program to collect as much data as possible with different fuel loads on our two cars.

Felipe Massa – 4th & 3rd

It was a good day, maybe our best Friday since the start of the season. The car seems competitive and the balance wasn’t bad for a first day of testing. Obviously, it’s only Friday so it’s difficult to have a precise picture of the situation, partly because we don’t know if our competitors are trying things, but I’m reasonably satisfied.

Unfortunately, because of the red flags, I couldn’t use the super soft tires the way I would have liked, so I focused on long stints with the appropriate amount of fuel on board.

The ability to use the movable wing in two locations will definitely favor overtaking. The tires are working well and the degradation is not excessive, so I don’t think we’ll see that many pit stops during the race. However, we must take into account that there is a strong chance of rain on Sunday, so we might have a wet track race.

Pat Fry

These days, there are few moments to catch your breath during the two practice sessions because we’re always trying to reconcile the car’s development program with the usual tasks of a race weekend, namely finding the best possible setup for the car and comparing the two available types of tires.

Here, we also had the new Medium tire from Pirelli to evaluate for the upcoming European Grand Prix, and on top of that, the frequent red flags repeatedly slowed down the scheduled program, for us and for others as well, I suppose.

However, it’s more challenging than ever to interpret the results, especially because no one has managed to make the most of the super softs. From what little we know, our car seems relatively competitive on this circuit. Rain is forecast for Sunday, which is another unknown to keep in mind when making the final decision on the settings.