Saturday: Ferrari still far off the mark

Fernando Alonso – 16th and 12th

«It happened like this: I was a bit on the grass during braking, the car went off, and I found myself in the gravel. I managed to keep the engine running and hoped the marshals could get me back on track. I had set my time on already used soft tires: maybe a new set would have allowed me to get into Q3, but I wouldn’t have been able to fight for the front rows. Today, we lacked performance, particularly because we don’t have enough aerodynamic downforce and we are still lacking top speed.

Tomorrow we will run defensively and try to do what we can, hoping to make the most of the four sets of new tires we have. Let’s hope for a good start to catch up with those ahead of us and hopefully we can fight with them until the end of the race. Here, at the end of the qualifying session last year, we were 1.4 seconds off the best time, whereas today, we are 1 second off, so hypothetically, we can say we are more competitive than we were.

Obviously, other teams have made progress, but I think we have room to improve. In Malaysia, we will have the same car, so the situation should not change too much. We will just have to see how it adapts to the characteristics of the circuit. It is true that our goal for the start of the season was to fight for victory right away and we did not succeed, but the season will be long and all we can do is work to improve performance… There is no reason to be angry because it serves no purpose.

Felipe Massa – 18th and 16th

«I am very disappointed: this is not the start of the season I expected nor the one I hoped for. It has been very difficult right from the start of free practice 3: the car’s balance was never what I wanted and I never managed to have a clear lap. I was always lacking grip, both with the mediums and the softs, and I was suffering from oversteer on entry and understeer on corner exit. I don’t know why but the car seemed worse than during winter testing, maybe because of the characteristics of this circuit.»

Now we have to try to do what we can for the race tomorrow. It won’t be easy because I will be starting from very far back, but I will give it my all. I don’t think I can manage with just one stop, but we have to try to make up the ground lost in qualifying. Clearly, we are behind, perhaps even more than we thought and there are other teams that have improved a lot compared to last year. We need to work to find the right direction to develop the car.

Pat Fry – Technical Director

«There is no denying that it was a difficult qualifying session. It’s true that with Fernando, we could have easily made it into Q3, given that he completed his only lap in Q2 with worn Softs, but I don’t think we could have done better than the 4th row. Unfortunately, Felipe had trouble with the balance of his car all day and we have a lot of work to do to try to fix the situation for the race tomorrow.»

Let’s hope that over a long distance, things will be better and we will at least try to exploit the fact that Fernando will have no less than four sets of new tires, while Felipe only has two. Clearly, the positions on the grid for our two drivers are what they are, but we will do our best. And it is also clear that we need to work harder than ever to make the F2012 faster and try to close the gap with the best as soon as possible.