|
A tough time
in winter testing, a difficult qualifying yesterday:
hardly surprising therefore that the opening round of
the 2012 Formula 1 World Championship did not provide a
miracle Sunday afternoon cure. Fernando Alonso brought
his F2012 home in fifth place at the end of the 58 lap
race, thus securing 10 points, while Felipe Massa had to
retire his car in the garage with broken suspension,
after colliding with the Williams of fellow Brazilian,
Bruno Senna.
It’s Autumn in Australia at the moment, but Albert Park
was a summery backdrop for Race 1, with a light breeze,
warm temperatures and a beautiful blue sky. From 12th on
the grid, Fernando Alonso did well to make up four
places to lie eighth on the opening lap, with Felipe
Massa making up no less than six places, going from 16th
to 10th. By lap 4, they were sixth and ninth
respectively with Felipe going eighth on lap 5. Fernando
was sandwiched between Rosberg in fifth and Webber in
seventh. The Spaniard tried all he could to pass the
German and moved up a spot when the Mercedes man pitted
on lap 12, before the Ferrari man came in next time
round, emerging ahead of Rosberg. Felipe’s first pit
stop on lap 11 had dropped him to twelfth. Fernando
would find himself fourth, after Perez was the last
driver to change tyres in the Sauber, but Felipe was
struggling and found himself overtaken by Raikkonen and
Kobayashi. The Brazilian made a second stop on lap 28,
the Spaniard on lap 35, which dropped him temporarily to
seventh. Felipe’s difficult day came to an end after a
collision with the Williams of Bruno Senna on lap 47.
The impact damaged the suspension and he was forced to
cruise round to the pits and retire. The positions at
the front remained pretty much unchanged to the flag
from then on.
The race was won by Jenson Button and for much of the
race it looked like being a McLaren one-two. But in the
run of pit stops that came after the Safety Car was
deployed, because Petrov crashed the Caterham, world
champion Sebastian Vettel in the Red Bull managed to
snatch second from Lewis Hamilton. In between the
Englishman and Fernando, local boy Mark Webber was
fourth. The biggest scrap of the race took place behind
the Ferrari man, with Kobayashi claiming sixth for
Sauber ahead of the returning Kimi Raikkonen in the
Lotus and the other Sauber of Perez. The last two points
positions went to Ricciardo, ninth in the Toro Rosso and
Di Resta tenth in the Force India. Alonso’s ten points
puts Scuderia Ferrari fourth in the Constructors’
championship as the teams all pack up and head for
Malaysia where the Sepang circuit hosts Round 2 in just
seven days time.
Stefano Domenicali:
“Clearly we cannot be happy with a fifth place but,
given how things went yesterday, Fernando’s result is a
positive one, the result mainly of yet another super
performance from the Spaniard. Felipe’s bad Sunday is
the result of the Saturday that preceded it: the balance
of his car was not right and he paid the price,
especially in terms of tyre degradation: a shame because
thanks to a really good start, he’d managed to move up
straight into the top ten. We knew that this weekend,
the car we had was not the one we wanted going into this
season, but today we also saw a situation that was a bit
different to yesterday, especially as far as Fernando
was concerned, because, in the first stint, his pace was
not that far off that of the leaders. The Safety Car did
not help him any and after the end of the neutralised
period, Fernando’s pace was no longer as competitive and
he struggled to keep Maldonaldo’s Williams behind him. I
want to highlight the performance of the crew during the
pit stops: looking at the figures, we were the fastest
both in terms of outright performance and on average. I
am keen to mention this, because we have worked a great
deal on this front: already in the second part of 2011,
the situation was better and today we have taken another
step forward. We know we must raise the performance
level of our car: from what we have seen here in
Australia, there are several teams not so far off one
another and one does not need to make enormous progress
to make up several places. We know the main areas we
need to work on – traction and top speed first and
foremost – and we must accelerate as much as possible
the development work to reach the level of the best as
soon as possible.”
Fernando Alonso: “We knew it would be a
very complicated race and I am happy I managed to bring
home a useful number of points. I got a great start and
managed a few passing moves in the early stages and
later, after the Safety Car, there was a tough fight
with Maldonaldo: when I saw he’d gone off the track I
breathed a sigh, because he had been really close to me
for quite a few laps up until then. I was slower than
him and all I could do was defend my position, using the
KERS at a few specific points. I am sorry for him,
because it’s a real shame to finish a race like that. As
for the positive points to come out of today, they would
be the start, the pit stops and the strategy. Today the
car was better than yesterday and we were closer to the
leaders. However, we still have a lot of work to do to
reach those who are ahead of us in terms of performance;
not just McLaren and Red Bull, but also Mercedes and
Lotus. We are probably a second off pole and there are
seven or eight teams who are all very close to one
another. In one sense, that’s good news because if we
can improve by a few tenths, then we can make up a few
places. Next week in Malaysia will be a trial by fire,
because Sepang is a very demanding circuit, for the cars
and the tyres.”
Felipe Massa: “This has been a really
poor weekend for me. Already yesterday I suffered
because the car was badly balanced and today, it was
probably even worse, because after a few laps I was
struggling with the tyres. I had got a great start and
had managed to make up a few places and I was hoping to
finish in the points. We tried to bring forward the
first stop, but also on the second set of Soft tyres we
had the same problems: the car was sliding and the
degradation was much greater than for the others. I
would not say I was driving aggressively and I was
actually trying not to be hard on the tyres, but there
was nothing I could do. Even on the Mediums, the
situation did not change. We must work to understand why
we could not reproduce the right balance on the car, as
we had for example at the Barcelona tests. As for the
contact with Senna, I think we can consider it a racing
incident. A Toro Rosso tried to pass me on the outside
of Turn 3 and Bruno had better traction on the inside,
so we went into Turn 4 side by side: that where we
tangled and it ended as you saw it did.”
Pat Fry: “From what we have seen this
weekend, our race pace is a bit better than in
qualifying. Today, Fernando drove a very good race and
managed to bring home some valuable points. A shame for
Felipe: we must try and understand why his car was not
right from yesterday as today, we saw even more of the
consequences of that. Both drivers got a good start and
managed the situation well through the first corner,
thus immediately making up the ground lost yesterday
afternoon: without that first lap, it would have been
tough because there are so many quick cars and it would
have been quite a task to get past them. The Safety Car
came out at the worst possible time for Fernando, but
even so, he would not have managed to fend off Webber in
the final part of the race. However, we are behind when
compared to the best, even if not as much as could be
seen yesterday. We must work very hard, that’s for sure.
Next week in Malaysia, we will have another difficult
race: we must try and adapt as well as possible to the
characteristics of the Sepang circuit.”
|
