Fernando Alonso sets the fastest time of the day, but requires tweaking – Formula 1 news
Fernando Alonso was the quickest on the final day of the first pre-season testing at Jerez.
The F2012 has not been the machine Ferrari hoped it would turn out to be and Felipe Massa clearly had trouble driving it on the first two days of the testing.
Massa said that the car increased the workload and will require a lot of practice to get used to it as it is completely different from its predecessor.
Ferrari has been aggressively working to come up with a winning machine as the team suffered an embarrassing 2011 season. The team only managed to secure one Grand Prix win during the season thanks to the rainy weather and some impressive driving from the
Spaniard at Silverstone.
Ferrari technical director Pat Fry also admitted that the car is not nearly what the team hoped but that the little time there is left before the season the team will do everything it can to tweak the car enough to make it a finished product.
Alonso did however finish the day with the fastest lap time set of the reduced day as the car was shelved in the garage for the most part of the day. Alonso completed 39 laps with the best time set at 1 minute and 18.8777 seconds.
So far, in the test the fastest car has clearly been the Lotus E20. First Kimi Raikkonen set the fastest lap time and later his teammate the impressive rookie Romain Grosjean improved it. The time was only bettered by Nico Rosberg driving the 2011 version
Mercedes car.
Lewis Hamilton also appreciated and noticed the pace of the E20 and said that the time set by Grosjean looks like a good qualifying time.
Most teams looked to be struggling throughout the first test with McLaren having some technical difficulties as Hamilton said that the car was not nearly as good as the 2011 version and required quite a few adjustments.
Force India’s VJM05 did a fairly good job initially until Jules Bianchi smashed the car in pursuit of stretching the limits of the car. Red Bull drivers have mostly been quite about their challenger’s progress though it seems that they are having some difficulties
of their own.
It will be interesting to see how the teams shape up before the second pre-season test scheduled to be held on February 21, 2012.
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