Summary Friday: Ferrari – A Difficult Day for the Reds

Friday was a difficult day for Ferrari. However, the Scuderia put in intense work. More than a hundred laps were completed by Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, dedicated in the morning to testing different aerodynamic configurations and new parts, while the afternoon allowed both drivers to focus on a more usual program for a Grand Prix Friday.

Fernando Alonso – 9th and 9th:

Given what happened today, we expect a difficult weekend even though we will do everything to get closer to the top. Today, we were not at our place and had to struggle to find a good balance on the car: we’ll see how to optimize that tonight. On a track like this, with very unpredictable weather conditions and tire degradation that seems significant, there will be many factors at play in the fight for pole position and being the fastest won’t be enough. This morning, we worked a lot on aerodynamics to understand what didn’t work in Australia, but even if we had been fast in Melbourne, there would still have been a lot of work to do. We are only at the beginning of the season: we are not fast enough to fight for victory and pole position, but that doesn’t mean we should give up, indeed we must multiply our efforts to quickly close the gap with those who have worked better than us.

Felipe Massa – 6th and 6th:

Logically, I expected and hoped to be faster, particularly against the two teams that are clearly ahead. We will see what we can do between tonight and tomorrow to improve the car. There isn’t much grip, and tire degradation is very significant, as we saw in the final moments of the second practice session, when everyone was probably running with a lot of fuel on board, this problem obviously does not concern us alone. If the race were to be dry, choosing the best strategy would be very complicated. The soft tire performs better: it has much more grip and is much faster, even though it degrades very quickly; the hard tire seems slower and, initially, a bit more consistent, but it degrades almost as fast as the other. Quick decisions need to be made this weekend. In the last two days, we have seen it always rains: if this were to happen in qualifying and the race, it could be a game-changer.

Pat Fry – Head of Trackside Operations:

We worked tremendously hard on this first day of free practice. Indeed, besides our usual Friday routine, we wanted to conduct a series of aerodynamic tests to gather extensive information on the car’s behavior, particularly concerning its front end. From a quantitative perspective, the goal was achieved as the program was completed as planned: now, we must analyze the data and derive the answers to our questions. This will be a challenging but essential task to adjust the direction for the car’s development. After this phase, we dedicated ourselves to the usual Friday activities, namely finding the best balance and, most importantly, comparing the two types of tires available. Based on what we have seen, we expect a very intense weekend for the pit-stop crew because tire degradation seems more significant compared to Melbourne: the possibility of rain on Sunday is likely… From the performance point of view, with all the unknowns of a Grand Prix Friday, the situation doesn’t seem very different from Melbourne: our goal is to extract the best from what we have available.