Fry: Strength in depth at Ferrari

Pat Fry had a brief meeting with the press at the Hungaroring circuit, shortly after the end of a qualifying session which saw the two 150º Italia cars again qualifying fourth and fifth. Asked if he was disappointed because this track was expected to suit the Ferrari better than some, the technical chief explained it was not so straightforward. “Of course, I would love to be on pole,” he began. “But this season it is hard to predict and some of the performance differences between the teams has been down to the nature of the track and how different cars are better suited to some types of circuit. Our car is more suited to the faster turns like at Silverstone for example, rather than the slow corners we have here.”

One of the reasons the media seemed to expect a faster Ferrari here is that the choice of Soft and Super Soft tyres is reputed to favour the car’s characteristics. “If you look back to Barcelona, we had particular problems warming up the hard tyre, which is something we are well aware of,” said Fry. “However, if you look here, with the Soft tyre, there have also been difficulties because I would say that Lewis (Hamilton) was the only driver who managed to get a quick lap out of the Soft on a first lap, while for us the best time on this tyre came on the third lap. Again, it is down to the nature of the car balance.”

Friday practice is very much a test session for all the teams and Fry clarified some aspects of what the Scuderia had been evaluating yesterday in Hungary. “The front wing we tested here was not intended for use here, but we might introduce it at Spa or Monza,” explained the Englishman. “As for the rear wing, it did not perform as expected and we are not running it here. However, we understand the issues we had with it and therefore it will be used later in the year.”

Inevitably, the intriguing topic of using exhaust gases for aero purposes continues to interest the media, so Fry shed some light on how the system works at Ferrari: “Some corners we are hot blowing and in others we are cold blowing and for us it is possible to switch from one to another quite easily, whereas other teams have to use their car one way only, whereas we can switch quite easily between the two depending on the corner.”

And finally, a question relating to the personnel structure put into place at Maranello after the Spanish GP drew this response from Fry. “There is strength in depth at Ferrari in terms of people and now we are concentrating on getting them to work well together, so we have not really needed to take on many new staff. There have been a few new hirings, but these had already been planned well before the changes that were introduced after the Spanish Grand Prix.”