Barcelona Practice One Review: Bye bye to ‘Friday Ferrari’

· by · in F1 Practice Review. ·

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In the closing races of his career at Ferrari, Fernando Alonso became synonymous with P5. Whether on the grid or at the end of the race, the stereotype on social media was formed.

At that time we also had “Ferrari Friday”. The red team would look most impressive in FP1 and FP2, but fail miserably to deliver either in qualifying or the race.

In today’s FP1 in Barcelona, the Mercedes pair were almost a second quicker than the Ferrari duo. Friday so far is not looking good for Ferrari.

Yet we await FP2 with interest to analyse the Ferrari race simulations – particularly on the medium tyre – to see if Sunday is likely to offer us anything other than the usual Barcelona procession. Ferrari would be delighted to lose their ‘Friday Feeling’ if it means they can dance a ‘Sunday Samba’.

Rosberg was marginally quicker than Hamilton, though the German is under investigation for a pit lane infringement which saw him drive the wrong side of a bollard.

Kimi’s one lap pace is improving and despite coming fourth behind Vettel, there was just twenty six 100ths of a second between the Ferrari pair.

The much vaunted Red Bull short nose was on display, though with Ricciardo out for most of the session unsurprisingly with engine related difficulties. So it was left to the less experienced Kvyat to try out Red Bull’s new big hope.

Toward the end of the session, Red Bull switched the short nose to Ricciardo’s now ready car and sent Kvyat back out with the version they have run since Australia.

Toro Rosso look good, as both their rookies were ahead of the big bull pair on the time sheets. Max Verstappen has proven already this year he is not afraid to mix it with his seniors and betters – and today he was complaining Raikkonen had been holding him up.

Williams continue their Friday focus of the year, which is designed to fail to impress anyone including themselves. Suzie Wolff was disappointingly over 0.8s slower than Massa, but she racked up 22 laps for the team.

Lotus usually run well in Barcelona, but today both cars were outside the top ten.

Alonso and Button managed to climb ahead of Perez their next target – Force India – though Alonso was still four 10ths slower than Hulkenberg.

18 responses to “Barcelona Practice One Review: Bye bye to ‘Friday Ferrari’”

  1. >Suzie Wolff was disappointingly over 0.8s slower than Massa

    I’m a bit puzzled by that. Massa has driven the car in excess of 2.000km by now, while Wolff drive the Williams for the second time and (at least in the first 30 mins) on delta runs. I’d say it’s more embarrassing for Massa that he couldn’t even put a second on her considering how massively more mileage he has.

      • Actually I would say that that performance would be more in the “expected” ballpark. For instance, Marciello was 0.5sec slower than Nasr. And we must not forget that testing programmes could have been different for the two drivers…

    • @Hippo puzzled 🙂

      No, it just means the cars are too easy to drive, or Toto asked his embedded techs to turn down Felipe’s engine a bit and turn hers up to 11, especially after Bottas is linked with Ferrari.

        • Of course! But the car is painted white, just like other domestic appliances. So she probably has an added advantage when operating all those controls on the steering wheel.

          In the style of Frankie Boyle.😎

      • I would disregard the comparison to Maldonado, since the latter managed barely 7 laps. I don’t if he beached it or if the Lotus needed tweaking, but Maldonado quite possibly didn’t get the chance to set a proper flier… The comparison between Marciello and Nasr is far more interesting, see above.

          • Palmer had FP1’s before. And I repeat – it’s a difference to be compared to Massa (even if he’s not in top form) than going up against the most inept driver of the current grid.
            And Wolff was clearly on delta runs, not on laptime runs.

  2. I really hate the ‘new’ F1.com. I used to be able to look up results from previous years, including all session times, No longer. Navigating the site is painful and information is now hidden. Good fu*king job FOM, you must love the fans………..

  3. What were the difference in times for Red Bull between the stubby and the large nose.. Any improvement?

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