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Most F1
drivers readily admit that racing in front of a home
crowd provides a great boost, however, in the high tech
world of Formula 1, a cheering crowd has no effect on
the stopwatch. If it did, then maybe Fernando Alonso
would be starting from further up the grid than his
eventual fourth place on the second row, as the Spanish
fans packing the Valencia grandstands cheered his every
lap during qualifying this afternoon. The Scuderia
Ferrari driver's performance and indeed that of his
team-mate Felipe Massa, who qualified just one place
behind him, was slightly compromised by the fact that
neither man put together a perfectly clean lap. In
addition, although the new updates, including a low
configuration exhaust system and various aerodynamic
modifications introduced here, delivered the performance
boost the engineers had expected, the F10 might still be
a fraction lacking in outright pace when compared to the
quickest. Today, that meant the Red Bull Racing duo, as
they monopolised the front row of the grid for
tomorrow's European Grand Prix, with Sebastian Vettel on
pole and Mark Webber beside him in second. Fernando will
share his row with third placed Lewis Hamilton in the
McLaren, while Felipe has the Renault of Robert Kubica
alongside him.
With both types of Bridgestone tyre performing more
consistently than they did in Montreal a fortnight ago,
tomorrow's race is likely to be less incident packed
than the Canadian thriller and it should feature a
straightforward one-stop strategy for most drivers. But
the challenge of the Valencia track should not be
underestimated, as it boasts fast sections, heavy
braking and barriers very close to the track. One only
had to watch this afternoon's GP2 race, which featured
several multiple collisions and the arrival of the
Safety Car on the opening lap, to realise that anything
could happen: making a good start and keeping out of
trouble, will be the Ferrari duo's first target when the
red lights go out at 2pm local time tomorrow, to start
the ninth round of the world championship.
Stefano Domenicali. “We are reasonably
pleased with this result. The car proved to be
competitive and everything was in place to secure an
even better result but, for various reasons, we never
managed to put together the perfect lap with either of
our two drivers. All the same, we know that as always,
the points are only given out tomorrow. We can expect a
long and difficult race for the drivers the teams and
the cars and, as I usually say on Saturdays, reliability
will be the key. The technical updates we introduced
this weekend have seen us take a step forward in terms
of performance, but we must continue to push on the
development front, because the other teams are doing the
same.”
Fernando Alonso: “I am happy with this
result. Here, so many teams, including Ferrari, have
brought new parts and so it was important to show we are
capable of fighting for the top places. We managed it
and we must bear in mind that, without the updates we
have on the F10, we would probably have struggled to
make it into Q3. Tomorrow, we have the potential to
fight for a podium place: it will be important to get a
good start, choose the right strategy and not make any
mistakes because the walls here are not forgiving.
Obviously, reliability will be very important as this
track is very tough on the cars. With the harder tyre,
our car was more competitive as its behaviour inspired
more confidence over the flying lap, but to have done Q3
with this compound would probably have compromised our
race.”
Felipe Massa: “Today, we had a good car
and the potential was there to do better than this fifth
place. In Q1 and Q2, I was very pleased with the
handling of my F10, but in Q3 I was not able to improve,
mainly because of traffic that prevented me from
preparing the tyres properly. It’s a shame, because I
could have been starting from third place tomorrow: from
fifth it will be harder to fight for a podium finish,
but the chance is still there within our grasp. The
updates the team has brought here contributed to making
the car more competitive and they lived up to our
expectations: we must continue down this route for the
rest of the season.”
Chris Dyer: “There is a hint of
disappointment at this result. After this morning’s
third free practice session, we saw that our car was
very competitive on the harder tyre, while it struggled
a bit more to get the best out of the softer one on the
single flying lap. In the two hours before qualifying,
the team worked on trying to find the right compromise
and the situation improved, but not enough to put us in
the fight for the very top positions, which was also
down to the fact that neither driver managed to get a
clean lap in Q3. That explains why Felipe and Fernando
ended up where they did. All the same, it’s not a bad
position for the race: from what we have seen so far,
the F10 seems to be very competitive over a long run.”
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