Ferrari unhappy with tyre managment

 August 27, 2011 (F1plus Team).- Ferrari had dismal qualifying session today for the Belgian Grand Prix. The team seemed to have a hard time to figure out the track conditions.

Few times shone in a day when sunlight and warmer temperatures were scarce. Bruno Senna will star in seventh, and his drive under such conditions was remarkable. Also, Jaime Alguersuari showed his skill by finishing with the best sixth time.

For Ferrari, the session began on a wet track and the two drivers used one set of intermediates each in Q1 and two in Q2. Then, in Q3 conditions allowed for the use of dry tyres and both Felipe and Fernando opted for the Soft, which wasn’t clearly the best-suited option.

Getting the tyres to the proper temperatures and make the correct read has been a problem that the team has faced before this year. There was low grip level, so Massa’s fourth was, in a way, a good result.

Stefano Domenicali: “We are definitely disappointed with a result that does not match our expectations. We managed to get through the first two sessions in the wet in one piece but then, once we switched to the dry tyres, the chronic problem that has characterized our season was clear to see, even more so here than elsewhere, namely the difficult in getting the tyres to work well in low temperatures and on a damp track."

On top of that, there was traffic to contend with, which created further problems for Fernando, who was definitely penalized by it.”

Pat Fry: “We are disappointed both with the places from which our drivers will line up on the grid and with the gap to the quickest. It’s true that in Q3 we encountered the conditions least suited to us: a damp but drying track, with rather low temperatures. We have already seen this before: in similar situations we lose a lot compared to the other top teams, because we cannot get the tyres up to temperature. It is our car’s Achilles Heel and we still haven’t fixed it and today it caused us even more of a problem than we could have expected."

Fry then added: "We should not use it as an excuse, but as a further impetus to solve the problem. The team worked very well during the session, especially in the first part, when it was important to manage operations and the strategy as well as possible with track conditions changing all the time.”