Last year’s Korean Grand
Prix was one of the wettest weekends of the year and
this year’s visit to the Yeongam circuit, outside the
port of Mokpo has started off under the same water sign.
Yesterday morning's session was pretty much a wash-out
with only 17 of the 24 drivers actually setting a lap
time. The Ferrari drivers contented themselves with some
“in and out” laps and practice starts, feeling that
there was little to learn from just lapping on a track
with a lot of standing water. The fact the weather
forecast is for predominantly dry weather for the
remaining two days of the sixteenth round of the World
Championship supports the rationale of not taking
unnecessary risks.
Conditions improved considerably for the second ninety
minutes of track time, as can be seen that, while
Michael Schumacher set a fastest lap in the morning in
his Mercedes in 2.02.784, in the afternoon, Lewis
Hamilton was quickest for McLaren in 1.50.932. Fernando
Alonso took his 150º Italia to fourth place on the time
sheet, completing 25 laps, while team-mate Felipe Massa
did one lap less on his way to seventh fastest. Some
teams tried running slicks, but the clear lesson from
today is that the track takes a long time to dry and
intermediates were the best choice for much of the
session. Jenson Button was second for McLaren ahead of
third placed Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull, while in
between Fernando and Felipe came Mark Webber, fifth in
the other Red Bull and Jaime Alguersuari sixth for Toro
Rosso.
It’s difficult to do any effective testing in these
changeable conditions, in some ways worse than
consistent rain, but nevertheless, Ferrari evaluated
different configurations of a new front wing on the
Spaniard’s car. The conditions highlighted the 150º
Italia’s reluctance to bring tyres up to operating
temperature on cool days, so this is yet another reason
to hope for dry weather for tomorrow’s final hour of
free practice. After that comes qualifying to decide the
starting positions for what will be Felipe’s one hundred
and fiftieth Formula 1 race, his first having been the
2002 Australian Grand Prix.
Fernando Alonso: “It was quite a
difficult Friday, with the weather changing throughout,
making it almost impossible to draw any useful
conclusions for the rest of the weekend. When one
considers that it should not rain tomorrow or on Sunday,
then it becomes even clearer why this day had little if
any significance to offer. The objective is still to do
the best we can and in this case, to understand as much
as possible about the handling of the car at this track.
We also had a new front wing to try, but it was
definitely very difficult to evaluate it in conditions
like these, conditions which were ideal for the McLarens
for example. We need more laps to bring the tyres up to
temperature and then, when we get there, maybe the tyres
are already beginning to go off a bit. We will have to
improvise a bit both in qualifying and the race. The
entry to the pit lane is much improved compared to last
year, but there is still room to do better with the
exit.”
Felipe Massa: “Rather a complicated
day. The track did not provide much grip and degradation
on the intermediates seems to be more significant than
usual: there is no other way to explain the fact that,
even if an ever drier line was emerging, the times did
not drop. Obviously, it makes it difficult to prepare as
well as possible for the race and qualifying, but it’s
the same for everyone. The exit of the pit lane is
difficult, as one could see from the collision between
Rosberg and Alguersuari: I think efforts should be made
to improve it for the future. 150 Formula 1 races is a
nice achievement: those I remember most fondly are the
ones I won, and that would even include Brazil 2008. The
worst memories? Races like the ones in Hungary and
Singapore that same year, where victory was within my
grasp, but slipped away from me.”
Pat Fry: “It was a rather complicated
day because of the weather. In the morning, there was
too much water on track and there was no point in going
out, given that tomorrow and Sunday we should have a dry
track. In the afternoon, conditions were slightly
better, but the track dried so slowly that it was never
possible to run effectively on the dry tyres. We
therefore tried to make a virtue out of necessity,
getting as much as possible out of one set of
intermediate tyres for each driver. With Fernando, we
concentrated mainly on a comparison of two different
front wing configurations and now we must analyse the
data this produced. Of course, the grip level is pretty
low: these are certainly not ideal conditions for us, as
can clearly be seen from the time sheet. It will
therefore be a slightly different weekend to usual:
tomorrow, we have only one hour to try and find the best
balance on the cars for dry conditions and then it will
immediately be time to fight for the grid positions.”
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