F1 News
Date: 20/February/2013
Fernando Alonso declared the new
Ferrari to be 'on another planet' relative to the debut of last year’s troubled
machine, after completing his first 2013 laps at the start of the second
pre-season test in Barcelona.
The Spaniard, who defied the poor
outright performance of last year’s Ferrari to finish just three points from Red
Bull’s Sebastian Vettel, had left driving duties to team-mate Felipe Massa
during the opening test of the year in Jerez.
Alonso drove for a lengthy 110
laps on Tuesday at the Circuit de Catalunya, venue for his home Spanish Grand
Prix, gathering data on the new F138 and latest specification Pirelli tyres.
The double World Champion set a
best lap time of 1m 19.952s, good enough for third on the timesheets and within
0.3s of fastest man Nico Rosberg (Mercedes). Lotus driver Kimi Raikkonen was
second.
“I feel reasonably pleased with this first day
and I can say I share Felipe’s opinion that the car is on another planet
compared to the one we began with on the first day of testing last year,”
declared Alonso.
“The programme for this first
session in Barcelona is aimed mainly at improving reliability, with the target
of completing more than a hundred laps every day. Then, at next week’s test we can
concentrate on performance.”
Alonso added that, unlike last
year, new developments are now producing the kind of on-track results expected.
“I knew from looking at the Jerez
data what sort of car I would find here today, as in fact we know more or less
what we will see at the first race in Australia, in terms of what new parts we
will have and how many tenths they will produce.
“This is down to all the work done
over the winter in the wind tunnel and the numerous tests which confirm that
the parts that are on their way will give the expected results.”
Reigning triple World Champion
Vettel was fourth fastest, a fraction behind Alonso.
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