Canadian GP 2014 Team news & quotes

[Kristof_F40]

I think at this track Lewis has the edge over Nico, so unless there are mechanical issues or a bad start, Mercs will be fine and 1-2. Question is: who will be behind Merc? RBR is fast, but this isn't there most ideal track, but still, they will be up there. So the question is, how will Williams and Force India do? I think they can have a good race here, hopefully we won't be behind them and will have a top 5 position

[Nero Horse]

The 2007 F1 world champion has had a challenging start to the 2014 campaign, having struggled more than team-mate Fernando Alonso in getting comfortable with the feel of Ferrari's F14-T under braking and corner entry.

With more work to do to overcome Raikkonen's issues, Ferrari has decided to bring back its test team engineer David Lloyd to a racing role to help Raikkonen from this weekend's Canadian Grand Prix.

Lloyd will help support Raikkonen's race engineer Antonio Spagnolo and other staff in trying to improve the lines of communication between the Finn and the team so as to get a better understanding of what is needed.

Raikkonen has worked well with British engineers in the past, having had a long partnership with Mark Slade at previous teams McLaren and Lotus.

It is undecided yet if the change will be permanent, or will last only a few races until enough progress has been made.

Lloyd originally joined Ferrari from BAR in 2003 as a test engineer, before becoming race operations manager in 2007 after the departure of Nigel Stepney.

He then returned to a role as a test engineer for the Maranello outfit.


https://eurosport.yahoo.com/news/for...26238--f1.html

[vcs316]

Ferrari:

Kimi Raikkonen: "Like every Friday, today's programme centred on looking at different set-ups in the first session and a race simulation with both compounds in the second one. This morning, because of a problem on my car, I was unable to run as much as planned and that's never a good thing, because getting in plenty of laps is very important. Thanks to speedy work from the team, in the afternoon, we managed to make up for the run lost in the morning and even if it's too early to make predictions, overall, it didn't go badly and by the end of the day my feeling with the car had improved. I am still not 100% happy with the handling of the F14 T, but I am sure that an analysis of the data we gathered will point us in the right direction for qualifying and the race."


Fernando Alonso: "I am reasonably pleased with the day's testing as we got through a lot of work without encountering any particular problems. We tried some new components and now we must concentrate on getting a good understanding of how they are working. As always on a Friday, we must analyse all the data we have gathered to try and be as well prepared as possible for tomorrow's qualifying, also taking into account the fact that tyre behaviour is very similar to what we saw in Monaco. Certainly, the Supersofts are not like they were in the past and in a race, they last for many laps. For that reason I think there won't be any problems either in qualifying or the first stint of the race."

[vcs316]

Ferrari looking for speedy development

Despite being able to push "a bit harder" with their engines, Pat Fry has downplayed Ferrari's Montreal updates.

Fernando Alonso set the pace in the morning's session at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, crossing the line 0.016s faster than Lewis Hamilton.

And although the Mercedes driver was quickest in the afternoon, the two Ferraris finished fourth and fifth with Kimi Raikkonen ahead of Alonso.

The duo were both half a second down on the leading Mercedes driver, an improvement on their recent form.

Explaining the updates that Ferrari brought to Montreal, Pat Fry told Autosport: "There were quite a few bits, aero, control system tuning, obviously the engine reliability updates, which allowed us to push the engine a bit harder as well.

"It's far too early to be able to say if it is working or not - we need to look at more detail as normal.

"We need to keep developing the car as quick as we can."

However, the head of engineering at Ferrari admitted that catching the Mercedes drivers this weekend may be a step too far.

"I think that will be a very tough challenge," he said. "There is quite a gap to close."

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[vcs316]

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[Rob]

Canadian GP – Pat Fry: “Teamwork”

Pat Fry: “We had a particularly busy day in our garage today. What might have looked like two normal practice sessions were actually particularly demanding for the engineers and mechanics, because of several problems, albeit small ones, that affected the running of our programme. However, the number of laps completed by both drivers was enough to get the necessary information to carry out the job of fine tuning the cars. There were two sides to the programme, evaluating the updates introduced for this race and comparing the two compounds, the Soft and Supersoft, brought here by Pirelli. As usual here in Canada, the track is very dirty and that affects grip levels. On this front, we can expect a significant improvement over the course of the weekend. We have to keep that in mind when working on set-up and also when assessing tyre degradation. This latter factor, along with managing fuel consumption, will play an important part in qualifying and in the race, given that temperatures are expected to rise over Saturday and again on Sunday. It’s always difficult to make predictions on Friday because the relative performance level of the teams has yet to be assessed. We will try and give Kimi and Fernando the best possible package and then we will see what results that can deliver.”

- See more at: http://formula1.ferrari.com/news/can....pfIfh6dV.dpuf

[Rob]

Canadian GP – Pat Fry: “A difficult qualifying”

Pat Fry: “Today we knew we’d be facing a difficult qualifying, but to be honest, we were hoping for something a bit better. We also knew that at this track, we wouldn’t just be fighting Red Bull, but other teams as well who, thanks to the few corners and long straights here, would give us a hard time and that proved to be the case. The session began in particularly high temperatures, almost 20 degrees hotter than yesterday and we struggled more than our rivals to find enough grip with both cars. From a technical point of view Red Bull, thanks to their higher level of downforce and Williams, with the better driveability of the Mercedes engine, were able to get more out of the tyres, which meant they were more competitive than us. Tomorrow, we will try and do all we can to get a good start, although this year it has not been so easy to make the most of the straights for overtaking. We will definitely have to keep an eye on tyre degradation, which has a bigger effect here, especially with the rears.”

- See more at: http://formula1.ferrari.com/news/can....SUM4wJTX.dpuf

Fernando Alonso: “Uncertain strategy”

Fernando Alonso: “The result of qualifying reflects the trend we have seen since the start of the season. As often happens, even if on Friday we are front runners, on Saturday we struggle a bit more. The development package we have brought here in Canada has worked well, the car has improved and I am pleased about that, even if at the moment we are unable to extract all the potential out of the car. Mercedes’ dominance today was not a surprise and the Red Bulls and Williams also did better than us. I think tomorrow’s race will not be easy, as it is hard to overtake at the start here, because there is not enough room through the first two corners. We will also have to do a good job of managing tyre degradation and of choosing the right number of stops. It’s been much hotter than yesterday and the tyre that seemed to be the best to race on, the Soft, today appeared less suited to the conditions than the Supersoft. If, as expected, the hot weather continues, the choice will move towards the latter and that will mean making one more stop.”

- See more at: http://formula1.ferrari.com/news/can....7jqgHqKo.dpuf

Kimi Raikkonen: “I’ll give it my all”

Kimi Raikkonen: “All weekend, I haven’t been completely satisfied with the handling of my car and again today in qualifying I found it difficult. On my only run in Q3, I went out on a new set of Supersofts, but my F14 T was sliding a lot and I couldn’t put together a good lap. Maybe I could have been one or two places higher up, but I don’t think it would have changed much. Even if the updates we tried yesterday worked, we knew it wouldn’t be easy: probably this is one of the tracks that least suits the characteristics of our car. I expect a very long race tomorrow, in which anything could happen. We will try and get a good start and then give it our all.”

- See more at: http://formula1.ferrari.com/news/can....8KdUD1GU.dpuf

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