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After the first three days in Jerez which
had seen the new F2012 running well adrift
of the pace, today's fourth and final day of
testing for Scuderia Ferrari in southern
Spain saw Fernando Alonso plant the red
single seater firmly to the top of the
timesheets. |
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After
the first three days in Jerez which had seen the new
F2012 running well adrift of the pace, today's fourth
and final day of testing for Scuderia Ferrari in
southern Spain saw Fernando Alonso plant the red single
seater firmly to the top of the timesheets.
Alonso brought the test to an end this afternoon,
continuing with the work of acquiring data relating to
the behaviour of the F2012. Again today, a lot of laps
were completed at constant speed, or to a predefined
procedure, all of it aimed at gathering as much
information as possible about the car, comparing various
different configurations.
At the end of the final day, 39 laps had been completed
by Alonso, the quickest in a time of 1.18.877, which was
also the best of the whole test for the Scuderia. In
total, the F2012 has completed 1195.56 kilometres to
date, through running 270 laps.
Technical Director Pat Fry had met with the press
immediately after the end of the penultimate session
yesterday when Ferrari were running still well off the
pace. “There’s no reason for us to take the fuel out and
try and do a quick time to make headlines in the
newspapers,” said the English engineer. “However, we
must try and maximise the limited twelve days of testing
available to us. We have already lost some valuable time
when it snowed in Fiorano: on the first day here, Felipe
had to do all the work that we could have got through
last week, making the most of the opportunity of the
promotional filming. With only three tests available,
the work has to be more compressed compared to last year
and there is a lot of it to get through. The base line
is good and we are working through everything that has
to be tried to find the best balance on the car,
especially in the various phases of the various types of
corner. The matrix of solutions we are working on is
pretty extensive and one can say that, on practically
every run, we are trying different configurations. Here
and in Maranello, we are working very hard on data
analysis and also using the simulator so as to be sure
that we can put together the best possible package.”
Up until the end of Wednesday there had not been any
reliability problems, but yesterday a failure of an
hydraulic nature meant Alonso had to put up with an
unexpected stop that lasted around ninety minutes.
“Parts are arriving here from the factory which should
prevent this type of problem from reoccurring," added
Fry. "From a reliability point of view, the car seems
good, as it was in the past. As for performance, I can
only say that it is going to take a lot of analysis to
put all the pieces of the jigsaw together.”
The Scuderia will resume testing on 21 February, at the
Catalunya Circuit near Barcelona, with Fernando Alonso
the first of its drivers on track.
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