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The 12 days of testing at Jerez and Barcelona on offer to Scuderia Ferrari and the other ten Formula 1 teams have gone quickly. Now's the time to get ready for the first race to be held in Australia, March 17.
There were six days of testing for Felipe Massa, five for Fernando Alonso and one for Pedro de la Rosa in just about every kind of weather, except perhaps the conditions expected in Melbourne.
They completed a total of 1069 laps of the two Spanish tracks: 3682km from the last two sessions at the Catalunya circuit near Barcelona, plus a further 1231km in Jerez making up a total of 4913km.
These are the figures that count for the data analysis that the Scuderia's engineers have been carrying out to understand the behaviour of the F138 - with particular attention paid to the new Pirelli tires, which have been designed to provide a better show and, as a result, the “thrill” of unpredictability.
It was this very point that Pat Fry, Scuderia Ferrari's Technical Director, emphasised in his evaluation of this intense month of testing.
“All the teams, ourselves included, will still have a lot to learn about the tires in Melbourne,” said Fry in an interview posted by Ferrari.
“The performance and the degradation of the tires will be the determining factor in establishing how competitive everyone is. Albert Park is a partial street circuit - it is only used for racing a few times during the year - so it will be interesting to see how the tires behave in higher temperatures,” he added.
Asked about the comparative performance of the teams, Fry added: “During these days of testing we have just concentrated on our own work programme. There are some quick cars but frankly our attention has been very much on the work linked to the F138's development, collecting data on the new parts that we have brought, especially in this final test. The positive thing is that our aerodynamic simulations - both from the wind tunnel and CFD - have given us the results we had been hoping to see on the track. You can never have a 100% correlation but this is an encouraging sign for the new parts that we aim to bring to the first races, starting in Melbourne”.
There were six days of testing for Felipe Massa, five for Fernando Alonso and one for Pedro de la Rosa in just about every kind of weather, except perhaps the conditions expected in Melbourne.
They completed a total of 1069 laps of the two Spanish tracks: 3682km from the last two sessions at the Catalunya circuit near Barcelona, plus a further 1231km in Jerez making up a total of 4913km.
These are the figures that count for the data analysis that the Scuderia's engineers have been carrying out to understand the behaviour of the F138 - with particular attention paid to the new Pirelli tires, which have been designed to provide a better show and, as a result, the “thrill” of unpredictability.
It was this very point that Pat Fry, Scuderia Ferrari's Technical Director, emphasised in his evaluation of this intense month of testing.
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| Pat Fry, Ferrari's Technical Director. (Photo: WRi2) |
“All the teams, ourselves included, will still have a lot to learn about the tires in Melbourne,” said Fry in an interview posted by Ferrari.
“The performance and the degradation of the tires will be the determining factor in establishing how competitive everyone is. Albert Park is a partial street circuit - it is only used for racing a few times during the year - so it will be interesting to see how the tires behave in higher temperatures,” he added.
Asked about the comparative performance of the teams, Fry added: “During these days of testing we have just concentrated on our own work programme. There are some quick cars but frankly our attention has been very much on the work linked to the F138's development, collecting data on the new parts that we have brought, especially in this final test. The positive thing is that our aerodynamic simulations - both from the wind tunnel and CFD - have given us the results we had been hoping to see on the track. You can never have a 100% correlation but this is an encouraging sign for the new parts that we aim to bring to the first races, starting in Melbourne”.