24/04/2009
NEWS STORY
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro was back on track today for the Bahrain Grand Prix free practice, at a circuit where it carried out two winter test sessions in preparation for the season. In conditions very different to those experienced last February, the team worked solely on race preparation, both in terms of assessing the performance of the Bridgestone tyres and in a comparison of two different configurations on the F60.
Stefano Domenicali: Our car is unchanged from the way it was in Shanghai and therefore, we couldn't expect a different picture. Our aim is to bring home some points: we have to be realistic and at the moment, we cannot aspire to more than that. We have to tackle this difficult phase with a cool head, working on all fronts to try and get back to being competitive as soon as possible.
Felipe Massa: This was definitely not a good day. We worked a lot towards the race, but we have to try and improve the handling of the car to move up the order for tomorrow and Sunday. The harder tyre is very difficult to use, while the soft one seems to be the best, not just in terms of outright performance but also over a distance. The KERS helps: without it, I would have certainly been slower. I made a mistake at the final turn on my last set of soft tyres, which cost me at least three tenths. We must be patient at the moment and try to do the best possible in these conditions.
Kimi Raikkonen: Even if we don't know what fuel loads the other teams had, it's clear that we are not as quick as we would like, but we have to try and make the best of this situation. Anyway, we knew that the picture for this race would be no different to what we've seen in previous ones. Today we opted to run in two different configurations and did a lot of work on finding the best set-up for the car. We collected a lot of data which we will now analyse, to be as well prepared as possible for the race. We can expect a difficult weekend, but we were never in any doubt about that.
Chris Dyer: Today, we had a very full work programme, based mainly on race preparation and on a comparison between the two cars that ran in different configurations: Felipe's was fitted with KERS, while Kimi's was not. We acquired a load of data which we will now evaluate very carefully before taking any definite decisions regarding the rest of the weekend. Today's conditions were very difficult, with high temperatures. We struggled a lot with the harder tyres, while the softer ones worked better. We had no reliability problems, which is the most positive aspect of the day. As for performance, we have a lot of work to do to try and improve it, while well aware of our current potential.