FP1 & FP2 - Canadian GP report: Ferrari

The first free practice session this Friday of the Canadian Grand Prix was a busy one for Scuderia Ferrari. There were various new parts to evaluate on the F14 Ts. Fernando Alonso was fastest in 1.17.238, while Kimi Raikkonen was ninth with a 1.18.578.

Fernando had a trouble free session, covering 21 laps in his F14 T. Kimi Raikkonen had a glitch to deal with, unable to use the power unit to its full extent at the start of the session. The Finn completed 15 laps.

Behind Alonso came the two Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, just 16 thousandths off the Spaniard’s time and Nico Rosberg, a tenth and a half behind. Between the top three and Raikkonen were Vettel, Bottas, Ricciardo, Button and Magnussen.

In the second free practice session for Sunday’s Canadian Grand Prix, Scuderia Ferrari continued a busy programme of evaluation of the latest updates fitted to the F14 T, which got underway this morning. In the second 90 minutes of the day, Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen split the work, the Finn trying parts the Spaniard had used in the morning and vice versa.

Having solved the problems that had slowed him in the morning, Kimi set the fourth fastest time of 1.16.648 on the Supersofts, 53 thousandths quicker than Fernando who was fifth. Raikkonen completed 31 laps, Alonso 27. The Mercedes duo were quickest, with Lewis Hamilton posting a 1.16.118 and Nico Rosberg doing a 1.16.293. Sebastian Vettel was third for Red Bull in 1.16.573. Behind the Prancing Horse duo came Massa, Bottas and Magnussen.

Like most teams, Scuderia Ferrari spent the final thirty minutes of the session working on a long run test, in preparation for the race. Here again, the two men split the workload, with Alonso starting off on the Supersoft tyres, while Raikkonen opted for the Soft, before switching to the softer compound at the end. As usual, Saturday’s programme features the third free practice session in the morning, with qualifying taking place in the afternoon.

Fernando Alonso

“I am reasonably pleased with the day’s testing as we got through a lot of work without encountering any particular problems. We tried some new components and now we must concentrate on getting a good understanding of how they are working. As always on a Friday, we must analyse all the data we have gathered to try and be as well prepared as possible for tomorrow’s qualifying, also taking into account the fact that tyre behaviour is very similar to what we saw in Monaco. Certainly, the Supersofts are not like they were in the past and in a race, they last for many laps. For that reason I think there won’t be any problems either in qualifying or the first stint of the race.”

Kimi Raikkonen

“Like every Friday, today’s programme centred on looking at different set-ups in the first session and a race simulation with both compounds in the second one. This morning, because of a problem on my car, I was unable to run as much as planned and that’s never a good thing, because getting in plenty of laps is very important. Thanks to speedy work from the team, in the afternoon, we managed to make up for the run lost in the morning and even if it’s too early to make predictions, overall, it didn’t go badly and by the end of the day my feeling with the car had improved. I am still not 100% happy with the handling of the F14 T, but I am sure that an analysis of the data we gathered will point us in the right direction for qualifying and the race.”

Pat Fry

“We had a particularly busy day in our garage today. What might have looked like two normal practice sessions were actually particularly demanding for the engineers and mechanics, because of several problems, albeit small ones, that affected the running of our programme. However, the number of laps completed by both drivers was enough to get the necessary information to carry out the job of fine tuning the cars. There were two sides to the programme, evaluating the updates introduced for this race and comparing the two compounds, the Soft and Supersoft, brought here by Pirelli. As usual here in Canada, the track is very dirty and that affects grip levels. On this front, we can expect a significant improvement over the course of the weekend. We have to keep that in mind when working on set-up and also when assessing tyre degradation. This latter factor, along with managing fuel consumption, will play an important part in qualifying and in the race, given that temperatures are expected to rise over Saturday and again on Sunday. It’s always difficult to make predictions on Friday because the relative performance level of the teams has yet to be assessed. We will try and give Kimi and Fernando the best possible package and then we will see what results that can deliver.”