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As the action
gets underway at the Albert Park circuit,
for the first round of the Formula 1 World
Championship, the two Ferrari cars are
carrying a special sticker dedicated to
Japan. Fitted to the front wing support of
Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa’s 150°
Italia cars, it features the Japanese flag
with the message “Forza Giappone.” In this
way, Ferrari wishes to shows its support for
the Japanese people as they deal with the
devastating consequences of the earthquake
and tsunami that hit the country on 11
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Before coming to
Melbourne Scuderia Ferrari knew its new F1 car was
reliable, thanks to an impressive mileage accumulated
over the fifteen days of testing in Spain. So, no
surprise then that Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa
racked up over one hundred laps between them in today’s
two free practice sessions. However, any questions
relating to the pecking order among the twelve teams
remain unanswered on a day best described as confusing,
not least because of cool conditions and the occasional
shower of light rain. Add in the fact that this
semi-permanent track is also a bit green and dirty on
the first day and clearly, the engineers will have a
tough task analysing all the data from today, in order
to prepare for the rest of the weekend.
Despite the fact that the media seemed determined to
write off the McLaren team in terms of competitiveness,
Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton proved them wrong in no
uncertain terms, setting the fastest two times of the
day, with the Scuderia’s Alonso third. Red Bull Racing,
who topped the morning time sheet, were fourth and fifth
this evening, with reigning world champion Sebastian
Vettel ahead of team-mate Mark Webber. In sixth place
was Michael Schumacher for Mercedes, with Felipe Massa
in the other Prancing Horse car seventh. Of the five new
drivers making their F1 debut, the best of the bunch was
Sergio Perez: the Mexican set the eighth quickest time
for Sauber.
Dryer and warmer conditions are forecast for tomorrow,
so it is possible that the first qualifying session of
the season might start to deliver some of the elusive
answers regarding the relative strengths of the teams.
At the moment it’s too close to call and as Alonso
pointed out, ensuring that every aspect of the team’s
work is carried out perfectly will be the key to having
a good day tomorrow.
On the opening day of
the Formula 1 World Championship, Ferrari chose to show
solidarity with the Japanese people, who have been so
seriously affected by the earthquake and subsequent
tsunami that hit a fortnight ago. Therefore the two 150°
Italia cars carried a phrase in Japanese and the
country’s national flag. During today’s three hours of
free practice, the Ferrari drivers eventually completed
a total of 102 laps, split between 48 for Alonso and 54
for Massa.
Fernando Alonso: “Nothing new yet and
what else would you expect? These two free practice
sessions have not actually revealed the real relative
strengths of the teams: this morning Red Bull went well
and in the afternoon it was McLaren’s turn, with us and
Mercedes always in the mix, while Williams and Renault
also seem competitive. There are so many teams who could
be in with a chance of going for the win and therefore
it’s obvious that it will be necessary to have a good
Saturday, without any mistakes if you want to start from
the front row. Today, we concentrated mainly on
analysing the behaviour of the Pirelli tyres, which
seems a bit different here to what we saw in testing,
partly because the track surface has very different
characteristics. As far as strategy is concerned, we
will need to be very flexible during the race, because
at the moment, we know too little about the tyres to be
able to say with certainty on which lap it will be best
to stop. From what we have seen today, maybe we can do
ten laps on one set of tyres, or maybe thirty! I am
happy with the way the car is going: at the start there
was a bit of understeer and we still are a way off from
having perfect grip at the front, but it went better
than I was expecting. We wanted to show that Japan was
in the thoughts of all of us at Ferrari, which is why we
ran with a sticker dedicated to the people of a country
that has brought a lot to Formula 1 and where our sport
has a great following.”
Felipe Massa: “We tested a lot of
things in these two free practice sessions, splitting
the work with my team-mate so as to explore different
ways to go in terms of preparing for the rest of the
weekend. I expected to set a quicker time, especially as
the softs were not at their best until the fourth lap.
On the hards, on the longest runs, it did not achieve
much, as there were also a few drops of rain to
complicate the situation. From what we have seen, the
soft tyre shows less degradation than we might have
expected, but we have to work out if that will still be
the case in the race. This track is definitely less hard
on tyres than Barcelona for example, where we did so
much testing. This year it will be vital to study their
behaviour carefully, circuit by circuit. The difference
in outright performance between the two types of tyre is
very marked. McLaren and Red Bull seem very strong, but
there are other cars that can also be on the pace.”
Pat Fry: “This morning we worked mainly
on evaluating a few aerodynamic updates on the front
wing, while the afternoon was spent mostly comparing the
two types of tyre that Pirelli has brought here, running
with various fuel loads. Unfortunately, the second
session took place in very variable weather conditions,
with rain putting in an appearance, which made it even
more difficult to assess the situation. During the first
ninety minutes it seemed that the tyres showed less
obvious degradation compared to what we had seen during
the fifteen days of testing in Spain. As for the
afternoon, I think we need to analyse the data very
carefully, especially that part relating to the longer
runs. Now we can get down to work: we can expect a long
evening to prepare ourselves as well as possible for
tomorrow’s qualifying.”
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