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One and a
half Singapore Grands Prix was the combined distance
covered by Scuderia Ferrari’s two F2012s in the hands of
Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa today. Plenty of laps
is always the first priority on a street circuit as even
the best drivers need to readjust to driving within
millimetres of the barriers after tackling the more
forgiving normal race circuits. Formula 1 has been
coming to Singapore for five years now, but the sight of
the sun going down and the artificial lights brightening
the night sky, making the cars’ colours seem even more
vivid than usual, is still one of the most exciting
moments of the season.
The start to the “morning” session was not quite as
expected though, because a heavy storm prior to the
start left the track surface wet enough to require the
use of the Intermediate Pirellis, so an assessment of
the Soft and Supersoft slicks started a bit later than
usual for everyone. Fernando was fourth fastest at the
end of the first ninety minutes and third in the second
session and ominously, reigning world champion Sebastian
Vettel topped both time sheets for Red Bull, with both
McLarens of Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton always up
there too, indicating that it’s going to be another
exciting race weekend for the fans and a challenging one
for the Prancing Horse.
Felipe? He
was unhappy with his car all day and actually, the team
found something was not working as it should, come the
end of the day, with the Brazilian ninth on the time
sheet, but as he said himself, even with that problem
resolved, there is still plenty of work to do to be
competitive. Apart from indicating that the top teams
are all very close, today has possibly delivered more
questions than answers, with unknowns relating to tyre
degradation and other factors, while thinking about
strategy involves the impossible task of trying to
account for the likely appearance of the Safety Car. And
before then, we have the complicated task of keeping out
of traffic and safely negotiating a passage through the
final qualifying shoot-out tomorrow afternoon.
Fernando Alonso: “We tried various new
components on the car: some seem to be positive, others
less so, but maybe in the case of the latter, we need to
spend a bit more time for them to be developed as well
as possible. Overall, I would say today was positive,
even if the first impression is that we are not as
competitive as we were in Monza, two weeks ago. We still
lack a bit of performance on tracks like this one, where
you need maximum aerodynamic downforce. From what we saw
today, there’s a significant difference between the two
types of tyre, but we will have to wait until tomorrow
to get a clear picture of the situation on this front.
Maybe today’s difference has been somewhat exaggerated
by the evolution of the track surface. Testing the tyres
over a long distance is very complicated on a track like
this, because of the traffic, therefore it’s difficult
to make a direct comparison to our main competitors. I
am reasonably sure that, on Sunday, we will see rather
significant degradation and it will be important to
manage that as well as possible.”
Felipe Massa: “It wasn’t an easy day
for me. The car wasn’t right all day and I also suffered
particularly badly with tyre degradation in both
sessions. At the end of the second session, we found
something that wasn’t working properly, but that doesn’t
explain all my problems. We must find out what happened
so we can fix it for the rest of the weekend. We have
reasonably clear ideas about the direction to go in when
it comes to set-up: one thing’s certain, there’s a lot
of work to do.”
Pat Fry: “We had a full programme to
get through during the three hours of free practice and,
despite the track conditions not being ideal at the
start of the first session, we managed to complete
practically everything, which is always important. We
split the work between the two drivers: Fernando
concentrated mainly on evaluating some new components,
while Felipe looked more at finding the best balance on
the car. It was the same when it came to analysing tyre
behaviour, with the drivers tackling different tasks, so
as to gather as much data as possible. Fernando started
his long run on the Supersoft, while Felipe started on
the Soft. There were various updates to try, mainly on
the aero side: some lived up to our expectations, others
less so. Now we must study the data carefully to decide
which will be the best combination for qualifying and
the race. There’s definitely a lot to do to get the car
right. As for qualifying, it will be important to
prepare for the single quick lap as well as possible,
while as far as the race is concerned, tyre degradation
will be one of the crucial factors. On Friday, it’s
always hard to say where we are compared to the others,
but it’s clear our main rivals seem very strong, both on
a single lap and on a long run. Having said that, we all
know it’s Sunday that matters.”
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