“Confronted with a tragedy like the one that has struck Japan today, Formula 1 and all its problems to do with tyres, wings and engines is way down the list of priorities and today, my thoughts go first and foremost to the victims and their families.” Alonso was shocked at the reports of the tragedy which hit northern Japan.

Later, once the debriefing was over, it was time to add an evaluation of how the day’s testing had gone. To get a realistic idea of how competitive Ferrari is everyone will have to wait until Saturday 26 March and qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, but what is now a certainty is that the Ferrari 150° Italia is a strong car. After the 614 kilometres that Massa racked up yesterday, today Alonso overtook his team-mate’s total, hitting the 656 mark, bringing the Scuderia Ferrari total laps for these first three days at the Catalunya circuit to 1714 kilometres.

“Once again, the car has proved to be very reliable, which is always good news,” said Alonso at the end of the day. “The updates that the team prepared for this last test have improved the handling of the car and today we managed to do a good simulation of a Grand Prix weekend, with reasonable lap times. Where are we compared to the others? Today, we are all together here in Barcelona…But joking apart, we will only discover the truth in Melbourne. Tyres used, fuel loads, test programmes: there are too many parameters in play and they can make a big difference in terms of outright performance. Right from the start of these tests, we have always concentrated on our own work, trying to improve the car and be reliable: how clever we have been, we will see in two weeks time.” The Scuderia continues testing at this circuit tomorrow, again with Alonso on track.

Test Details (11/03/2011); Circuit: Circuit de Catalunya – 4.655 km Driver: Fernando Alonso Car: Ferrari 150° Italia Weather: air temperature 8/17°C, track temperature 11/26 °C. Sunny and cloudy.