Monaco GP - Alonso Tops Thursday Practice Timesheet
Alonso steering well clear of the unforgiving metal barriers, the double world champion lapped in one minute 15.927 seconds in the morning and then carved more than a second off after lunch with a best time of 1:14.904.
Fernando Alonso: “It’s only Thursday, so the main aim was to understand how the tyres work and get confident with the circuit. On this track a major set up change might give you half a tenth, but trusting your driving can see you gain half a second. We therefore worked on finding the right feeling with the car and on making it easy to drive. There is still a lot of work to do and quite a margin for improvement. The track conditions will get better by Saturday, given that so many cars from the different categories will be running over the next couple of days. I hope that in two days time I will again find a well balanced car. I can understand that there could be a level of pessimism after the show of strength from Red Bull in Barcelona qualifying, but we know that here, having the right set-up can make more of a difference than pure aerodynamic downforce and we already have a good baseline, given that last year, Kimi nearly took pole with a car that was far off the F10 in terms of its potential.”
Felipe Massa: “The situation is definitely very different to Barcelona. From one week to the next I have found a much more stable car which is easy to drive and has much more grip. I have to say I can only be happy with the F10 and the way things went today. Having said that, there is still a lot to do to be done to be as well prepared as possible for the rest of the weekend. The traffic could be a problem, especially in Q1 and we will have to try and manage the situation as well as possible. Here it is always difficult to get a perfect lap: there are so many slow corners where you can lose a lot of time, which you never get back. However, getting it right is really especially satisfying.”
Chris Dyer: “I would say this was a good day. First of all, it’s always positive to be able to complete three hours of free practice around the Monaco track without doing any damage to the cars, which meant both drivers were able to work through their entire planned programme: we just had to shorten the time on some elements in the afternoon, because of the approaching rain. Both Felipe and Fernando said they were pleased with the handling of the car and managed to get both types of tyre brought here by Bridgestone to work well. Clearly, without knowing the fuel loads in the cars of our closest rivals, it’s hard to know exactly where we are compared to them, but I think I can safely say we should be able to fight for the top places on the starting grid.”
Source: Monaco GP - Alonso Tops Thursday Practice Timesheet
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