Fernando Alonso, 10th: “It was a normal Friday, based mainly on evaluating new aerodynamic parts in FP1 and on the usual tyre tests in FP2. As always, we tried to work out which would be the fastest compound to use in qualifying and which the most consistent over a long run. Felipe and I split the workload on track and now, this afternoon it is down to the engineers to analyse the data and take the best decisions for tomorrow, both in terms of the updates we have brought for this race and from what we have learned regarding the tyres. It rained in the morning and this slowed the programme a bit, but all the same we managed to complete it in the second session. We definitely lack a bit of performance: we will try and find it for tomorrow, as well as trying to sort out the balance of the car, especially in terms of its grip. There’s a lot to do if we want to have a good qualifying.”
Felipe Massa, 17th: “You definitely couldn’t define today as being fantastic. This morning the track was a bit wet and that meant we weren’t able to run as much as we would have liked, while in the afternoon, the track dried and we managed to get through our usual Friday programme. When I was on my first run on the Soft tyres, Glock went off the track at Turn 1 and I was forced to pit again: this meant I was unable to get the most out of this set of tyres and significantly improve my time. I am sure that it would have been much faster than the one posted on the classification: that bothers me a bit because I did not manage to use the soft tyres in the way I should have done. At the end of the session, we ran with a lot of fuel on board to improve the balance of the car.”
Pat Fry: “We have brought some updates here for the F2012 which should provide an improvement in terms of performance, compared to the first two races: the first evaluation that we can make after these three hours of free practice is a positive one, but clearly we have hours of work ahead of us this afternoon and tonight to complete an in- depth analysis. On the other hand, we cannot ignore the fact that the characteristics of this track seem to be less suited to our car than Malaysia. Taking these two factors into consideration, I am not expecting anything new in terms of our positions on the grid: at the moment, our realistic expectation is somewhere between seventh and twelfth place, as indeed we were in Sepang. However, we have to bear in mind that it’s all very close, so it only takes the slightest thing – a mistake, a less than perfect lap – to make for a significant change of position, either upward or downward. To those who ask me when we will see a Ferrari fighting for pole position, I can only reply there is no magic button we can press to improve the situation in one go. We need to push in many areas, starting with the aerodynamics which is still the decisive factor in today’s Formula 1, while not forgetting our work methods, in order to get the results in the short term, but especially in the long term.”
