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It rained on Friday in Silverstone, then
last week it did the same in Hockenheim and
contrary to forecasts, it rained today at
the Hungaroring, meaning that Ferrari and
the other teams weren't able to complete
tyre evaluations. |
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The various
nationalities represented the length of the pit lane –
and there are dozens of them – like to poke gentle fun
at one another based on their perceived characteristics.
So of course, with the English, the most well
represented country in F1, it’s easy to mock their
preoccupation with the weather, the basis of most
conversations they have. However, it seems that the
whole paddock is now Anglicised in its obsession with
cloud formations and with good reason: today was the
third consecutive race Friday that has had at least part
of its three hours of practice disrupted by rain.
Given that the heavy rain that fell around halfway
through the afternoon session had not been predicted, it
did a good job of disrupting everyone’s work schedule.
As usual, the biggest casualty on the job list was the
dry tyre evaluation over a long run, so vital to help
plan Sunday’s race strategy. However, as Fernando Alonso
pointed out, it was the same for everyone. The Scuderia
Ferrari driver ended the day with the fifth fastest
time, having been third quickest in the morning. In the
other F2012, Felipe Massa went from seventh in the
morning to fourth come the end of the day. Between them,
the two Ferrari men racked up a round century of laps,
54 for the Brazilian and 46 for the Spaniard.
Keeping up with its avowed intent to bring new
developments on the car for every race, here the team
had further aero updates to evaluate on a track that
requires maximum downforce. The Hungaroring threw up no
particular surprises and the hierarchy was not clear to
see given the conditions, but just five days after the
cars were packed away at Hockenheim, there is not much
reason to think it has changed. Indeed, the McLarens
that pushed Alonso hard on his way to that German GP win
have topped both time sheets today, with Lewis Hamilton
quickest throughout. In the afternoon, he was followed
by Kimi Raikkonen for Lotus and Bruno Senna in the
Williams. Completing the top six behind Felipe and
Fernando was Jenson Button in the other McLaren.
Fernando Alonso:
“What’s to say, the usual Friday, at the end of which it
is always difficult to hypothesise on how things will go
in qualifying or the race. Even more so when it rains,
as happened over the past three race weekends. Because
of this afternoon’s rain in fact, we did not manage to
try the dry tyres over a long run but, at least in the
morning we managed to complete the work relating to the
aerodynamic updates which we brought here in Hungary.
Now it’s up to our engineers to do all the analyses to
put together the best possible package for the rest of
the weekend. Here, qualifying is definitely more
important than elsewhere: it will therefore be vital to
go into every little detail to be as well prepared as
possible for tomorrow. The unknown relating to tyres?
It’s the same for everyone as was the case in
Silverstone and Hockenheim!”
Felipe Massa: “All in all, it was a
good day, with the only inconvenient factor being the
rain, which arrived halfway through the afternoon, which
prevented us doing the planned long run to understand
the tyre behaviour, However, it was not just our
problem, as everyone found themselves in the same
situation. All the same, we did manage to get a
reasonably clear idea on tyre performance and on that of
the car, but it’s really too early to judge where we are
compared to the others. There are definitely some cars
that are going quickly, as indeed was the case in
Hockenheim. But we are well aware that the results of
the first day at the Hungaroring always need to be taken
with a pinch of salt because at the start of the
weekend, the track is always very dirty and the
situation changes radically from Friday through to
Sunday. Let’s see how things go tomorrow. We realise we
need to do everything as well as possible to get the
very most out of what we have to work with.”
Pat Fry: “We did a hundred laps between
our two drivers, but much less than half of them were
really significant in terms of evaluating the
performance of the F2012 on this track. As usual on
Friday, we had a lot of work to get through, especially
as far as the car’s aerodynamics are concerned. Luckily,
the rain, which seems to be always with us in this long
summer part of the season, arrived when this part of our
work had been completed: we picked up a raft of data
which we now need to analyse, both on the track and back
in Maranello, to decide not only the configuration of
the car for the rest of the weekend, but also to
continue our development work for the second part of the
season. We had no reliability problems, which is always
positive. From the little one can see of the others, it
only goes to show what we said before the weekend: there
are some cars that are faster than us and if we want to
have even the slightest chance of beating them, we must
do everything perfectly. It won’t be easy, but we will
give it our best shot as usual.”
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