CHINESE GP – FLAT OUT FRIDAY
Company press release.
Felipe Massa setting the fastest time this afternoon around the 5.451 kilometres of the Shanghai International Circuit can be seen as the icing on the cake, at the end of the first day of practice for the Chinese Grand Prix. However, to continue the analogy, for Scuderia Ferrari it is the 'cake' itself that matters most and that too showed signs of being well prepared.
The speed of development in Formula 1 moves on at such a fast pace that Fridays at a Grand Prix, particularly in the early part of the season are incredibly hectic for all the teams. The job sheet would be full enough if it was simply a case of preparing the car as well as possible for the race weekend, but these days, the three hours of track time must also find room for testing new components aimed at keeping the development of the cars, the F138 in the case of the Prancing Horse, moving forward throughout the year. So far this season, there had not been much time to run new parts, given that the first two races in Melbourne and Sepang took place so far from home and only one week apart. But since the Malaysian round, two weekends have gone by without a race and so there's been time to introduce a raft of new components which all had to undergo their track debut here in China. The engineers need to remain cool and calm to combine this work with the more regular tasks of a race weekend. It's something the men from the Scuderia have had plenty of practice at and the day went off smoothly, with Felipe and Fernando racking up a total of 93 laps between them – 47 for the Spaniard and one less for the Brazilian.
There was also something new on the tyre front as the Pirelli Soft compound makes its season debut here this weekend. Degradation was always going to be high at a track where some of the corners seem to go on forever, turning in on themselves and tightening up. Fernando, who ended the day third fastest, and Felipe tried this new compound and the harder Medium on a mix of long and short runs and clearly the softer tyre is offering a big performance advantage which will become evident in tomorrow's qualifying. Splitting the two Prancing Horse cars on the time sheet was the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen. Last year's winner here, Nico Rosberg, was fourth for Mercedes, while Mark Webber in the Red Bull and Jenson Button in the McLaren, completed the top six.
Felipe Massa setting the fastest time this afternoon around the 5.451 kilometres of the Shanghai International Circuit can be seen as the icing on the cake, at the end of the first day of practice for the Chinese Grand Prix. However, to continue the analogy, for Scuderia Ferrari it is the 'cake' itself that matters most and that too showed signs of being well prepared.
The speed of development in Formula 1 moves on at such a fast pace that Fridays at a Grand Prix, particularly in the early part of the season are incredibly hectic for all the teams. The job sheet would be full enough if it was simply a case of preparing the car as well as possible for the race weekend, but these days, the three hours of track time must also find room for testing new components aimed at keeping the development of the cars, the F138 in the case of the Prancing Horse, moving forward throughout the year. So far this season, there had not been much time to run new parts, given that the first two races in Melbourne and Sepang took place so far from home and only one week apart. But since the Malaysian round, two weekends have gone by without a race and so there's been time to introduce a raft of new components which all had to undergo their track debut here in China. The engineers need to remain cool and calm to combine this work with the more regular tasks of a race weekend. It's something the men from the Scuderia have had plenty of practice at and the day went off smoothly, with Felipe and Fernando racking up a total of 93 laps between them – 47 for the Spaniard and one less for the Brazilian.
There was also something new on the tyre front as the Pirelli Soft compound makes its season debut here this weekend. Degradation was always going to be high at a track where some of the corners seem to go on forever, turning in on themselves and tightening up. Fernando, who ended the day third fastest, and Felipe tried this new compound and the harder Medium on a mix of long and short runs and clearly the softer tyre is offering a big performance advantage which will become evident in tomorrow's qualifying. Splitting the two Prancing Horse cars on the time sheet was the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen. Last year's winner here, Nico Rosberg, was fourth for Mercedes, while Mark Webber in the Red Bull and Jenson Button in the McLaren, completed the top six.
