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Just a few days after the
Malaysian Grand Prix, the Formula 1 cars are back in
action on another of the calendar’s “modern” race
tracks, this time at the biggest facility on the world
tour, in Shanghai. Unseasonably warm weather could have
contributed to the fact that the circuit sat under a
haze of fog for most of the day, as the twenty four cars
tackled the two 90 minute practice sessions.
Felipe Massa completed 61 laps of the track and Fernando
Alonso completed 32: the clue to what sort of a day
Scuderia Ferrari had is there in the numbers, because
the Spanish driver’s workload was interrupted in both
sessions by an hydraulic problem, caused by a faulty
part. As it was down to Alonso to evaluate new updates
rushed through from Maranello, this was particularly
unfortunate. The Brazilian on the other hand had no such
problems and was able to tick off all the items on his
job sheet. This means that even with Alonso’s limited
contribution, the engineers will have enough data on the
two types of tyre and on car set-up to move forward
tomorrow. Felipe was sixth fastest in both sessions,
while Fernando was twelfth in the morning and fourteenth
in the afternoon. This season’s only race winner to
date, Sebastian Vettel, was again fastest for the Red
Bull, with the McLaren duo of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson
Button not so far behind on the stopwatch in second and
third. Next up and ahead of Felipe came another pair of
team-mates, the Mercedes duo of Nico Rosberg and Michael
Schumacher.
The weather might be warmer than expected, but it is
still much cooler than tropical Sepang and this is no
doubt one reason why tyre degradation appears to be
significantly lower than in Malaysia. This might not
have such an influence on tomorrow’s qualifying, but
could be a factor in the race, especially if it means
there are fewer tyre “marbles” on the track surface,
making it less risky to move off the racing line and
encouraging more passing moves. But before then comes
one more free practice session tomorrow morning and then
the grid-deciding qualifying hour which for the first
time this year takes place at the “standard time” of
14h00.
Felipe Massa: “As was already the case
in the first two races of the season, today we witnessed
a very fast Red Bull. I am reasonably pleased with the
handling of the car over a long run, which produced some
interesting results. I am hoping for a better
qualifying, but we know it will be very difficult, while
from what we have seen today, I think the situation in
the race could be similar to what we saw in Malaysia.
Fernando used some new parts but it is too soon to say
if they really represent progress: unfortunately, he had
problems and did not manage to do as much as was
scheduled. The soft tyres seem much better than the
hards: not only do they give more grip, which is normal,
but also the degradation is not as high as we have seen
before. Over the years, I find it even more enjoyable
coming here to Shanghai: at the start it was all a bit
chaotic, but now the situation has improved and, as is
the case in my home country, Brazil a lot of effort is
going into making progress in many areas and that can be
clearly seen.”
Fernando Alonso: “I lost valuable time
because of a hydraulic problem, in both sessions, but
most of all in the second one. Unfortunately, I did not
manage to do any long run testing to get an idea of the
tyre degradation, but fortunately, Felipe managed to do
that on both types, so at least we have a good basis to
start from. As for the new aerodynamic components, it is
too early to say if they really produce an advantage.
The engineers will now have to study the data carefully,
before drawing any definite conclusions as to whether or
not we are moving in the right direction in terms of
development. From the little I could see, there are no
problems – or at least they are very slight – in terms
of warm up on the hard tyres, which could be an
improvement for managing the tyres in qualifying. I
don’t expect much to change from what we saw in Malaysia
and Australia: McLaren and especially Red Bull are
quicker than us and are favourites. At the moment we are
not capable of fighting for the win, but that doesn’t
mean we won’t be trying.”
Pat Fry: “I think we had more problems
today in three hours than we had in the whole fifteen
days of winter testing. A shame, because we needed to
cover some distance, especially with Fernando, who was
experimenting with the latest aerodynamic solutions that
they have come up with in Maranello. We will try and
make a virtue of necessity and carry out the job of
analysing the data with the data we managed to gather.
The hydraulic problems on car number 5 stem from the
same fault, a defective component and we will take
action to fix it for the rest of the weekend. Luckily,
Felipe had no problems and was able to run continuously,
doing long runs on both types of tyre. We will aim to be
as well prepared as possible for qualifying and the
race, but I don’t think we can expect anything very much
different to what we have seen in the first two Grands
Prix of the season.”
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