Fernando Alonso says he’s looking forward to the arrival next week of new deputy technical director Pat Fry, with whom he worked at McLaren.
The Spaniard insists Ferrari has the best people that he´s ever worked with, adding that Fry can only make things even better.
“He will reinforce our group and we will be even stronger now,” he said after Friday practice in Valencia. “I’m happy, I worked with him in 2007 and he’s a great engineer, and also a great person. I think it will be a really good integration by the team and I’m sure he’ll help the team to be even stronger.”
Meanwhile Alonso says it’s too early to say how good the latest Ferrari update package is, despite topping the times on Friday in Valencia. He says it was hard to make a direct comparison after low grip Montreal.
“Different tracks, different characteristics. So it’s difficult to know exactly what was the improvement of the car, so we’ll wait for tomorrow to see if we’re really more competitive or not. We’ve been on Friday sometimes very quick, I was P1 also on Friday last year, and I was P8 on Saturday. The job we have to do is tomorrow and Sunday, so today is just free practice, to analyse some components of the car, and evaluate the tyres as we did, so we’ll see tomorrow.
“The programme was to get some laps on the system, on the new parts of the car, to confirm that everything’s OK to race on Sunday. So we tried to do many laps today, and with the tyres the normal job, trying both compounds, on low fuel and high fuel, to see the behaviour of the tyre, with some positive results, so we are happy with today’s practice. We know tomorrow is going to be tight, one tenth or two tenths can make P1 or P2, or fifth or sixth position, so we need to be perfect tomorrow.”
Pressed on what he had learned about the updates, Alonso reiterated that he couldn’t yet make a call.
“The car was good today, but it was good also in Canada. I think when you find a difference between one circuit and another, with different levels of downforce, and different levels of grip on the asphalt, it’s difficult to compare the small differences in aero numbers.
“So instead we have to concentrate on tomorrow’s job, trying to do our best in qualifying. The potential is there, we have been quick in Canada, and I think we can be competitive here tomorrow.
“But it’s never going to be easy. I think Red Bull is very strong here this weekend, McLaren is very strong. It’s not so obvious in free practice two, but they were very quick in free practice one this morning. Mercedes with a big aero update as well, so Rosberg and Michael can fight for important positions.
“And also Renault has a new aero package here. I think we all brought something new, so it’s a matter of doing a good job tomorrow, because everything is more or less as in Canada. We all improved, so we all stay the same.”
Adam Cooper F1 