The first day on in season testing since 2008 was a bit of an anti-climax today as heavy rain especially in the afternoon, spoiled the chance of much meaningful running or evaluation of development parts. Most of the running was done on either full wet or intermediate tyres.
In the morning on a drying track the teams managed to cover some mileage, but in the afternoon the teams and drivers at Mugello in Tuscany competed only to see who could tweet the most graphic photographs of rain.
At one point the cloud base was so low that the medical helicopter would not have been able to take off so running was stopped.
For the record, Fernando Alonso set the fastest time in the Ferrari, which had some interesting updates on it, including a new exhaust position and some evolution on the front wing. A more definitive exhausts configuration is planned for Thursday, according to Italian colleagues.
Alonso spoke yesterday of his ambitions for the F2012 over the next few weeks, refuting suggestions that if the car doesn’t make a significant gain in the Spanish Grand Prix next week the season is over for Ferrari,
“No that’s a wrong message. This is just the first step, we have to climb back up steadily, race by race. If it goes badly at Montmelo (Barcelona) that doesn’t mean our season is over.”
He added that the first step is to “get into the top five in qualifying (where he qualified for most of last season) and have both cars in the points.”
Due to his own consistency – and the win in Malaysia – as well as the openness of the first four races, with no-one running away with it, Alonso lies only 10 points behind the championship leader after four races.
Interestingly Alonso admitted that he isn’t the fastest driver out there, but talked up his own ability to drive in damage limitation mode,
“I think that’s my strongest quality,” he said. “I’m not the fastest driver in qualifying, on street circuits, in the rain or in pit stops, but I’m a 9.5 (out of 10) in all those areas and I know how to get the best from the materials at my disposal.”
There were a number of new ideas being tested by teams, including several new front wings, such as on the Sauber and Force India car.
Nico Rosberg covered almost 50 laps in the morning, more than any other driver, while team mate Michael Schumacher didn’t set a lap time at all in the afternoon. Rosberg put a brave face on his day, saying that he and Mercedes had learned something, especially as they haven’t been all that strong in wet conditions this season so far.
“It was good and we learned some valuable things this morning in the wet,” he said. “Lately in the wet we weren’t that strong in Malaysia, but we got some dry running in the end and some useful tests there. So we learned something there, which was great and is a good start.”
Webber will get half a day tomorrow before handing over the Red Bull to Sebastian Vettel, while Felipe Massa will get his day in the Ferrari, before Alonso takes over again on Thursday to test new parts.
McLaren, incidentally, are celebrating getting an Edison award for implementing green technology and methods at their Woking factory. They were awarded a silver medal at the 2012 Edison Awards in New York.
The Edison awards are named after the great American inventor Thomas Edison, who founded invented the light bulb, the record player and many other things as well as founding GE. The awards celebrate “innovation and excellence as well as “groundbreaking scientific achievement”.
McLaren won for its efforts to improve carbon efficiency. The company says it has “achieved annual savings of over 1500 tonnes of CO2 emmissons and earned official carbon-neutral status,” something which all F1 teams are taking incredibly seriously these days.
1. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m22.444s
2. Mark Webber Red Bull 1m23.648s + 1.204s
3. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1m23.891s + 1.447s
4. Jerome d’Ambrosio Lotus 1m24.048s + 1.604s
5. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m24.100s + 1.656s
6. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber 1m24.736s + 2.292s
7. Oliver Turvey McLaren 1m25.303s + 2.859s
8. Jules Bianchi Force India 1m25.475s + 3.031s
9. Rodolfo Gonzalez Caterham 1m27.197s + 4.753s
10. Charles Pic Marussia 1m27.359s + 4.915s
11. Valtteri Bottas Williams 1m29.179s + 6.735s
12. Gary Paffett McLaren 1m50.898s + 28.454s
13. Michael Schumacher Mercedes Did not set time