Friday: Effective developments at Ferrari
Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa are quite pleased with the new features introduced by Ferrari in Spain as they seem to bring a performance gain. However, it is still too early to assess the real progress and there is work to be done to prepare for the qualifying and the race.
Fernando Alonso – 1st and 14th
It’s nice to be back competing in front of my fans: since I arrived here on Wednesday night, I have really felt the support of the fans, who are now Ferrari supporters. We’ve had a busy schedule, with lots of new things to try, and it was important to assess them carefully. The first impressions are positive: some parts performed better than expected, others less so, but overall, it seems to follow the trend seen at Mugello last week, which was confirmed by the data collected from the wind tunnel.
Today, the conditions were obviously very different from what we had during winter testing: it’s much hotter and the track conditions have changed, with temperatures reaching 45°C. We tried to adapt the settings to these conditions, but we are not completely satisfied yet: there is still work to be done.
In fact, it was a very different Friday from usual, with even more mixed conditions than during the first four races of the year. The tires? No surprises, we know them well enough with all the miles covered this winter and during the first part of the championship. The Soft tires seem faster, and the Hard ones more consistent, so nothing new on that front.
Felipe Massa – 12th and 11th
«It was very hot today, which put a lot of pressure on the tires. We worked a lot on the new features brought here this weekend, and at first glance, the results seem positive. This morning in particular, we focused on comparing different configurations, while this afternoon, we mainly worked on the settings and tire behavior.
It is impossible to make a comparison with the winter tests because the track conditions have completely changed, as the temperature is very different from what we had this winter. Now, we must put together the best elements to have our maximum potential and prepare properly for the qualifications and the race. On Sunday, if it is as hot as today, it should be an even more challenging race than usual, particularly because of tire wear.
