Mugello Tests – Day 1: Alonso the Fastest

Fernando Alonso was the fastest at the wheel of his Ferrari F2012 today on the Mugello circuit. The double Spanish world champion finished at the top of the timesheets on what was a day heavily disrupted by rain.

The session began with fog and a bit of rain, but the drivers still managed to do some laps before the track gradually dried up, and everyone went out between noon and around 1 PM. It was at that moment that the track was dry, or at least that a trajectory could be used by the drivers.

Fernando Alonso completed three series of one fast lap and one slow lap, improving the best time each time. He finished with a lap in 1:22.44, more than a second ahead of the second, Mark Webber.

The afternoon could have been conducive to plenty of laps and better lap times, but the weather decided otherwise, and the rain fell again on the track shortly before 2 PM, worsening later in the afternoon with the onset of a storm. As a result, drivers who were only scheduled to run this afternoon, like Gary Paffett with McLaren or Michael Schumacher with Mercedes, either didn’t run or did very few laps.

Due to the bad weather, the session was even interrupted with a red flag because the visibility wasn’t sufficient for the medical helicopter to take off. This notably forced Michael Schumacher to do virtually nothing with his afternoon: This afternoon, I was literally going out to check if it made sense to do some stints – which it didn’t – and at least it allowed the spectators, who were waiting in the rain, to see a car running at times.

The rain clearly disrupted the schedule planned by the teams, as Fernando Alonso explains: “We had an intensive work program planned, but we were only able to do part of it. It is therefore impossible to give a true evaluation of things, especially with so few laps covered in the dry.”

The weather is expected to be more favorable tomorrow, and all teams hope to be able to run on dry conditions to assess the developments made for these private tests.

F1 Private Tests – Mugello – Day 1 Standings