Ferrari director of engineering Pat Fry says that the Italian outfit still doesn’t know what the state of play is among the top teams as everyone comes to grips with the new technology.
Today Kimi Raikkonen lost track time with a telemetry issue, which led to a major re-set of the system.
“Today was a bit frustrating, because we were stopped for quite a time with a small but tricky problem,” said Fry. “We knew that sooner or later we would have to deal with some problems and that was what happened. These things happen with a new car; some things that seem difficult turn out to be easy and others that appear simple get more complicated and we are still learning.
“We will try to do our utmost to acquire the mass of data we want. Ideally, we don’t want to change our operational plan for next week’s test.”
Regarding the form book he said: “It’s hard to say where we are. We knew we’d be facing a very complicated winter with a lot of unknown factors. That was the case, but in Maranello we have done a lot of work and I can see that it’s difficult for everyone to move forward on the development front with so many new systems and so little time to test them.”
Adam Cooper F1 
Not directly related to this story but i’m following 2nd test closely & seeing McLaren doing so well is a reminder of what a shame it is that Martin Whitmarsh has been so quickly forgotten & airbrushed from the team’s history.
Well said Mick. In reality I don’t know if Martin was to blame for McLaren’s fade or should be credited with their potential return to top form this year.
Having said that I do feel Ron is somewhat prematurely jumping into the fray, for better or worse. And regardless of the results this year Ron will be the hero and Martin’s only legacy will be to wear the goat horns.
True, although I suspect it will help his cause around the F1 paddock when it comes to future employment prospects.
Agree as well, but it is the way of the world: especially in the F1 pressure cooker. Just ask Perez…