The
Spa-Francorchamps circuit wasted no time in keeping up
with tradition, serving up rain of the light and heavy
variety, even a thunderstorm early yesterday morning and
moments of hot weather with sunny skies. In practical
terms for the twenty four drivers tackling the first
three hours of free practice for Sunday’s Belgian Grand
Prix yesterday, this meant they had the unusual
opportunity of using every one of the four types of tyre
– two slick and two rain – that Bridgestone has brought
to the track in the one day. The heaviest rain fell
throughout the morning, while by the time the afternoon
session got underway at two o’clock, the track was
beginning to dry, so that towards the end, the slicks
made their first appearance of the weekend. But not for
long, as the Race Director red flagged the session in
the last quarter of an hour, as some spectators had been
spotted standing in a dangerous position.
With conditions changing by the minute, the order on the
time sheets had even less significance than usual on a
Friday, but nevertheless it was encouraging to see
Fernando Alonso top the classification in both sessions
and Felipe Massa in the other F10 post the fifth
quickest time in the afternoon. With the chance of more
rain over the next two days, today’s experience is
certainly not wasted and the dry running meant that at
least the drivers could save their extreme wet tyres for
later in the weekend, as the rules state that each
driver can only use three sets of these tyres during the
entire three days of the race meeting.
In common with the majority of the field, Scuderia
Ferrari would probably appreciate some dry running in
today’s final hour of free practice, to fine tune the
set-up of the cars and have a final look at dry tyre
wear. Second fastest today was Adrian Sutil in the Force
India, the team that sprung such a surprise here last
year, when Ferrari’s current third driver, Giancarlo
Fisichella finished in second place, behind Kimi
Raikkonen who, on that day, secured his last victory
with the Maranello team. In third place yesterday was
Lewis Hamilton for McLaren, ahead of Robert Kubica,
while completing the top six behind Felipe was Sebastian
Vettel in the Red Bull.
Stefano Domenicali.
“Given the way things went in both sessions it is really
difficult to give a correct evaluation of the situation. That is the main reason that one must be very cautious
in terms of drawing any conclusions from the two
sessions. From the little that was possible to
understand, there are some teams that seem more
competitive than previously, which could create some
surprises in the first five rows of the grid. We tried
to work through all our planned programme, which
included evaluating some new aerodynamic components.
Looking to the rest of the weekend, we can say that, as
ever at this track, uncertainty over the weather could
play a significant role. Finally, I take this
opportunity to add, on behalf of the entire Scuderia,
our congratulations to those of President Montezemolo,
to our former driver, Rubens Barrichello on the occasion
of his three hundredth Grand Prix participation, which
is a truly significant and important milestone.”
Fernando Alonso: “The impression one
gets on Friday does not always get confirmed on Saturday
and Sunday, therefore we have to evaluate today’s
results with a lot of care. Having said that, it has
definitely been a positive day, because the car seems to
respond well in all track conditions that we encountered
today. The times count for little, or nothing at all,
because when the track changes so quickly, times can
improve or get worse by two or three seconds depending
on the moment when you are out on the circuit. I think
the weather will play a key part, both [Saturday] and on
Sunday: anything could happen. We tried to test all the
new components we have here. If the track was to be dry
tomorrow, then we must try and improve our set-up,
because obviously it is not yet at its best for these
conditions, given that we only had a few minutes to test
on slick tyres. In fact, I felt the car was a bit
nervous, while in the wet it was easier to drive. When
thinking about going for pole position, first of all we
will have to see what the weather is doing: for sure if
it was to rain we will go out immediately because you
always learn from bad experiences”
Felipe Massa: “I am very happy to be
back racing at this track, having been forced to miss it
last year: I love driving here. From what we could
understand on a day like this, the car seems reasonably
competitive and that was particularly true on the rain
tyres. However, it is only Friday, so we will have to
wait to see how the Red Bulls go, given that so far they
have proved to be the quickest cars, as demonstrated in
qualifying. We had so many things to test [Friday],
which explains a few slow laps this afternoon. On the
intermediate tyres I immediately had good grip, but even
on slicks the situation was not that bad. On the final
lap, the only one on the soft tyres, I made a mistake,
but the car felt good: obviously there is room for
improvement and that is what we will try and achieve
[today].”
Chris Dyer: “It was quite a complicated
day because the weather evolved continuously. On top of
that came the red flag in the final part, which
considerably reduced the amount of time we could run in
the dry. Both drivers were reasonably pleased with the
handling of the F10 in the differing conditions
encountered, which is definitely positive. We had
various new components to test, but clearly, with track
conditions changing all the time, it is harder to make a
correct assessment: we will have to study the available
data carefully in order to draw the right conclusions.
The forecast is predicting the chance of rain for both
qualifying and the race: we will have to think calmly
about whether to go for a set-up that veers more towards
a wet track or if it is better to opt for a more dry
oriented configuration.”
