Fernando Alonso: “As usually happens on Friday, today we managed to get an idea of what sort of pace we should see in Sunday’s race. Conditions look like being reasonably stable over the whole weekend and this will help in analysing the times and strategies of the other teams, in order to understand exactly where we are. The type of tyre has not changed, so we can count on last year’s experience and apart from that, they are the same for everyone. To gain an advantage over our rivals, it helps to understand them as well and as quickly as possible. Here, more than at other tracks, starting from the front is extremely important and for this reason I believe that everyone will try and optimise their cars for qualifying, even if it means sacrificing a bit for the race”.

Felipe Massa: “All went well today and we tested everything on the programme, with the car seeming reasonably competitive. Even the long runs produced positive results and that is a very important factor for the rest of the weekend. Now we must decide which of the solutions we tried can be used for qualifying and the race. On this track, it’s really important to start as far up the order as possible and we will do all we can to be in the game. On Sunday, it will be difficult for everyone, as overtaking is almost impossible here and on top of that, they are predicting very high temperatures, which is a factor that needs to be given plenty of consideration when it come to getting the maximum out of our car”.

Pat Fry: “Overall, today was a good day and we managed to get through our entire programme with no problems whatsoever. During the first session and the first part of the afternoon one, we split the programme between the two cars, with the aim of finding the most suitable aerodynamic configuration for this track. The comparisons between the various components and the two compounds made available by Pirelli produced the answers we were looking for and now, with all the data we have from Fernando and Felipe’s cars, we, along with them, can get down to preparing for qualifying and the race”.


ALONSO – chassis 299
MASSA – chassis 298
First Session
P4
1:23.099
22 laps
P15
1:24.299
19 laps
Weather:  air 28/31 °C, track 37/44 °C. Sunny
Second Session
P4
1:21.426
34 laps
P5
1:21.544
37 laps
Weather:  air 31 °C, track 48/49 °C. Sunny