CIRCUIT DE BARCELONA-CATALUNYA | Fernando Alonso and McLaren have had another difficult testing day. An oil leak has force an engine replacement and the Spaniard has lost almost the entire day.
At the end of the day, he has finished in sixth place with a 1:19.856 set with hypersoft tyres and 57 completed laps, being McLaren the team with less laps.
A few minutes after the session ended, the two-time world champions has spoken to the media on an official press conference to which FormulaRapida.net has attended.
“I prefer it now,” Said about the new surface, which was criticised by Lewis Hamilton, who prefered the old one despite the bumps. “Everyone has his own opinion and it actually it doesn’t count since FIA or FOM force the tracks to get re-surfaced when it’s needed. But I’m happy, the track is perfect, there’s no bumps, it has been perfectly re-surfaced. I wish all tracks could do this update.”
“I’ve only tried it today,” He responed when asked about the new re-start procedure. “I think it’s not going to have a big impact on races. There will be a new start but the order will stay the same. It will be just getting used to have the procedure in mind even on mid-race, but I think it won’t change a lot.”
“As for the schedule, we’re not worried about the visibilty,” He told about the new scehdule on European races. “The only track where we had problems was Australia, where we start at 5:00 PM and it’s not going to change, so starting at 3:10 PM. As for the tyres, there are seven,” He added about the new compounds Pirelli provides this season. “But this is kind of a ‘lie’ by FIA since there are three compounds per GP and there is no major variation between drivers.”
“It’s much lower,” He said about the difference of 1.9 seconds between the team and Red Bull. “We will be optimizing the engagement,” He added about how the car and the new engine are working together. “All teams will do it, we’re always looking for efficiency, weight reduction and aerodynamic improvement and I think that we will be 100% ready for Australia.”
“From 0 to 10, it’s an 11.” He concluded about his overall feelings compared to last pre-season. “It has nothing to do. We have tried everything, we’re sure about the setup. We’ve tested new features on the car such as rear suspension. Things we need to learn before Australia and we have already solved. We would like to do longer runs, complete more laps, but we know a 99.99% of what we want to know and we didn’t have that on the last three years.”
