Friday: Ferrari drivers realistic for their home race

Fernando Alonso – 7th and 5th

« Racing at Monza is always exciting, especially if you’re a Ferrari driver. The passion of the fans is such that you can feel it. From a technical point of view, today was just another Friday: we worked a lot on comparing different aerodynamic solutions and various car setup choices. Now, we all need to work together, test, and make the right choices. Honestly, I think we’re slightly lacking in performance compared to others, although there are always the same unknowns related to Friday, especially those linked to fuel level. But we must be realistic, the car is more or less the same as we had in Spa, apart from some aerodynamic specifics related to the track requiring low downforce. Of course, it would be nice to repeat last year’s performance, but we know it will be very difficult. You can’t create miracles in two weeks, but we must do our best to give the fans something to cheer about.

What is my motivation for the last part of the season? I’m a very strong competitor and I don’t like to lose. It’s true, it’s happened quite often this year, but there are still targets within our reach, for example, second place in the drivers’ championship, Webber is not that far ahead.

Felipe Massa – 8th and 4th

I would like to say that it was a good day, especially because we managed to complete our program. We have understood which direction to take regarding aerodynamics and settings. Now, we need to try and optimize the car for both qualifying and the race. The difference between the soft and medium tires? It’s simple, the first one is faster over one lap. On the track, tire degradation doesn’t seem to be as strong compared to other circuits, so I don’t know how many stops there will be. Anyway, we have seen different directions taken in terms of aerodynamic downforce: to understand who made the right choice, we have to wait for qualifying and even until the race.