2012 Monaco GP Thursday and Saturday Free Practice

[LightAmaterasu]

Pretty good Felipe third on softs and Alo 4th.
Only Grosjean better than us in the dry.
Yet these were in the first minutes because then the rain ruined the drivers efforts.
Button's time (1st) on super softs.

Negative

Thank you!! So we should be faster on super softs then!! And good to see Massa do well again!

[LightAmaterasu]

No, we haven't

Thanks!!

[sav_pap]

Massa out, on inters I think

Right!

[sav_pap]

Thank you!! So we should be faster on super softs then!! And good to see Massa do well again!

[Chicane]

i wish someone here can sort out who's the fastest on the wets in this final minutes of practice

[Hornet]

Wait, are they using the same wet tires that they have to use for qualifying and race?

[sav_pap]

Huge difference between wet and dry times ??
If I'm not wrong about 16 secs??

[Chicane]

but whos the fastest on the wets is what i want to know..

[LightAmaterasu]

Huge difference between wet and dry times ??
If I'm not wrong about 16 secs??

Yes..! Webber was 18 secs off i think..,

[sav_pap]

but whos the fastest on the wets is what i want to know..

You can never know this because of the fuel loads!
The same for the dry!!
Only Q3 can tell!!!!!!!

[sav_pap]

Senna!!!

Such a huge name but such a tiny driver.

Pure pay driver!

[sav_pap]

Yellow flag !
Kovalainen again!

[sav_pap]

Good afternoon boys.
See you on Saturday.
Have fun.

[Rishu]

Second Yellow Flag because of the angry bird

[Chicane]

atleast we look competitive for two consecutive race now..

[hogo]

Great times that mean nothing, still I like what I see!

[Hornet]

Times on the prime tires look good, but more importantly is how we will manage on the super soft. Monaco here is all about qualifying. We have to wait till Saturday to get a clearer picture.

[Kyss4k]

We are looking goood

[ClaudiuCojo]

They said very small chances of rain for Sunday around 20%, so if it rains during Qualy it will be a lottery.

[sv_godspeed]

...go Felipe!

[Hornet]

They said very small chances of rain for Sunday around 20%, so if it rains during Qualy it will be a lottery.

Which is not good IMO. If we get stuck at the back, and we get a dry race on Sunday, it would be a disaster. Its almost impossible to overtake here.

[JONNY F.2008]

looking for a good double points finish.
massa on podium would shut a lot of the press up.
maybe.

[F2002]

I'm sure many of you follow him, but this is what Alonso had to say about today's sessions:

Meetings with engineers and drivers briefing shortly..! Good Thursday in Monaco, gaining confidence with the car. #Happy ..;))

[ClaudiuCojo]

That's good news, he said the same thing after practice sessions in Spain and he got a good result.

I think we'll be strong this weekend, I don't know if we'll get the pole(would be fantastic) but good enough to fight for the podium for sure, the only concern is if its raining on Qualy, then you can find yourself at the back because everything can change from one lap to another and especially this year when the differences are so small ... well you can see where I am going

I just hope, if we have wet qualy, that our team keeps a cool head and makes the right decisions.

[Crucial_Xtreme]

Absolute awesome picture. Especially for Massa fans. Right click>view image

[scuderiafan]

Remember Malaysia guys? Wouldn't mind rain if it stayed the same level and didn't change and catches teams out.
Ferrari is a nice rain car, but I guess the risk of barriers is high.

Monaco gets off on right foot.

Felipe Massa, "We weren’t able to do as much running as we would have liked because of the light rain that fell this afternoon, but all the same, I am happy with the way things went on this Monaco Thursday. The car seemed to me to be okay right from the start of the first session, with a good balance in all conditions and with slightly better traction than we had expected. Even when we ran the Intermediates in the final part of the second session, the feeling was still positive. As for the tyres, we didn’t even fit the Supersoft, therefore we can’t say anything about their behaviour, while the Softs worked well, also in terms of their degradation. Sure, there is still plenty of work to do to fine tune all the set-up details, but we have an extra day to think about what to do to improve in this area. It’s hard to make predictions about qualifying and, even more so for the race, but definitely we can say the first day of free practice can be considered a positive one.”

Fernando Alonso
“For we drivers, Thursday in Monaco provides the best opportunity to reacquaint ourselves with a very unique track. The more you go round, the more you gain confidence and the harder you can push to bring the lap time down. This morning, we were able to get through our planned programme without any trouble, but in the afternoon, the rain came to spoil our plans and those of the others too. We weren’t able to even fit the Supersoft and only Button was able to find the right window to make the most of the Option, which is how he set the fastest time. Now, we must see what the weather will be like on Saturday morning: if it turns out to be dry then maybe we will do more laps than usual, but even if it rains we will have to do work aimed at the race. In fact, it’s not as though we understood much more when on the Intermediates, given that the track was only damp in places and so it wasn’t very representative. We can’t control the weather, we can only adapt to it as it changes. As for the car, I would say the first impressions are quite positive: everything seems to respond as we would expect. We only made a few small modifications to the set-up, trying to improve it, but it’s obviously too early to draw any conclusions. Let’s say the weekend has got off on the right foot for us: now we must try and keep going down this path.”

Pat Fry
“The rain upset our programme a bit in the second session, preventing us from getting through the usual FP2 work, centred on a comparison of the two types of tyre brought here by Pirelli. This morning, we worked mainly on the set-up of the car, which has no significant new parts apart from the usual adjustments typically required for this track. In the afternoon, we actually wanted to try both tyres over a short and a long run, but we didn’t even manage a single lap on the Supersoft. In the end, we used a set of Intermediates with both drivers but, even in this case, the track conditions were not exactly ideal for this tyre. The same applied to almost everyone, therefore relatively speaking, we are not at any disadvantage. Clearly, we have less data available with which to define the best strategy for Sunday’s race: a bit more improvisation will be called for and we will need to be even more ready to react to every eventuality. We have no had any problems of any sort on both cars, which is always positive on a track like this.”

http://www.ferrari.com/English/Formu...-everyone.aspx

[Greig]

Remember Malaysia guys? Wouldn't mind rain if it stayed the same level and didn't change and catches teams out.
Ferrari is a nice rain car, but I guess the risk of barriers is high.

car is a lot different now though compare to Malaysia

[scuderiafan]

car is a lot different now though compare to Malaysia

Aerodynamically, but I think the core characteristic is still there. Sauber also made changes, and Oerez still looked good in FP2 when raining.
Couldn't pay attention to the Ferraris though.

[Jose-Lorca Fan]

I hope the Ferrari is able to perform on Supersofts. Do not want any surprises tomorrow.

[Greig]

I hope the Ferrari is able to perform on Supersofts. Do not want any surprises tomorrow.

Well it would be a surprise if they ran tomorrow FP3 they can use the supersofts.