A crucial month coming for Ferrari

Ferrari will being a crucial month ahead of the 2010 F1 season on Monday 1st Febuary as they head to the first test session of the year at Valencia. The teams have a total of 15 test days this month ahead of the season opener in Bahrain. The current plan is for all test sessions to be held in Spain, with Jerez and Barcelona being used later in the month.

Ferrari can only run one car per day and can run for a total of 15,000 Kilometres this year, so it makes these test days even more important for the team to get the best from the car and also to work fast to solve any technical problems they might uncover during testing. Ferrari have already given Felipe Massa the opening test duties so he can provide the team with immediate feeback and first hand comparison with the Ferrari F60. Chris Dyer spoke about the challenges facing the Ferrari team in the coming month.

“We have less time this year before the championship starts to get ready, but the goal is to reach the same preparative levels as in the past,” Dyer said. “That’s why we used the dynamic and static test stands more than usual over the last weeks, reducing the inconveniences, which come with small reliability problems, which usually show up after the first kilometres with a new car. This is how we try to concentrate more on the performance evaluation and the analysis of the two main issues this year: how the new tyres will work and the necessity to verify how the car runs with a full petrol load.”

“Obviously these two things are connected,” Dyer explained. “We need to understand how the car runs by comparing the new data with the one from the past. That means we’re driving with fuel loads we’re used to, but we also need to see what happens with a full tank on longer stints. This will make it difficult to set up a programme for a test day. There will be occasions when the car will have 20 kg of petrol on board and others when there will be 150. Obviously these differences will make it more difficult for the media and the spectators to interpret the results: the classifications will change from day to day based on the teams’ different programmes.”

The tests are not just about getting the car and driver ready, but also for the team mechanics, “There will be lots of work every day to set up the car, but we have to ensure that the mechanics, who will work with the two drivers during the races, acquire the necessary knowledge for the single-seaters on the track, to be ready for Bahrain. We also have to work as far as the pit stops are concerned, because this year will be even more important, as the time of a pit stop will be determined by the ability to change the tyres, while until last year we also had to refuel and had a little more time to change the tyres.”