Jerez Day Three: Is Ferrari’s F2012 a Lemon?

It’s official, tifosi all over the world are becoming increasingly worried that Ferrari’s F2012 is a lemon! After a third consecutive day spent at the bottom of the timesheets and a morning hydraulics problem, which meant that Fernando Alonso could only complete 67 laps, the Italian team’s latest challenger is looking far from promising.

Technical director Pat Fry even admitted to being disappointed after testing today when he stated “I’m not happy with where we are at the moment, there’s a lot of space to improve from where we are.” The Englishman also conceded that the snow in Maranello had negatively affected Ferrari, stating “We were obviously set back a little by the foot of snow we had in Fiorano, certainly the first morning with Felipe (in Jerez) was spent doing what we would have done there.” I am assuming that Fry was talking about all of the ‘promotional filming’ that the team missed out on. Perhaps the reason why the F2012 is so far off the pace is not because it is slow, but actually because Felipe and Fernando wanted to pose nicely for their close-up with the cameras!

Whatever the reason for Ferrari’s lack of speed (both serious and sarcastic), they certainly don’t have much time to figure out how to turn the F2012 into a championship contender. With only nine days of testing remaining before the first race in Australia and teams like Red Bull and surprisingly Lotus displaying few teething problems, all we can do is wait and hope that Ferrari are either sandbagging or that the F2012 finds its form soon.

Jerez Day One: Kimi's Komeback

The first day of testing in Jerez is officially over and I am not really any closer to understanding just who will be the team to beat in Melbourne. The big story of the day was Kimi Raikkonen topping the time sheets in the Lotus E20. It must have been particularly satisfying for the former Ferrari driver because he is returning to the sport after a two year absence. The thirty two year old Finn got down to business right away and showed no signs of being drowsy when he set the best time of 1:19.670 early in the session. There were rumours circulating that Raikkonen was spotted later on in the day eating an ice cream, but it turns out that they were completely unfounded and started by me…right now. For those of you who are disappointed that there are no new ice cream photos, here’s the famous moment one more time. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WeXfPJIbeM Putting all joking aside, I wish Kimi the best of luck this year. He was always a gentleman at Ferrari and even though his personality was not the best match for the team, he will always be a Ferrari World Champion. As Michael Schumacher has shown, making a comeback is no easy task, so Raikkonen will have his work cut out for him.

Aside from Lotus’s impressive form (which may be real or manufactured in order to grab headlines), the Red Bull RB8, which was launched officially yesterday, put in a solid performance. Mark Webber finished the day in 4^th place, less than a second adrift, despite missing much of the early running as the team awaited late-arriving parts from England.

Both the McLaren of Jenson Button and the Ferrari of Felipe Massa languished in 8^th and 9^th positions, setting times well off of Raikkonen’s pace. Ferrari reported on their Twitter feed that the main goal of the day was to collect data and make sure that all of the systems were functioning correctly. In that respect, the F2012 had a successful day, completing 300 kilometres without incident. After the inaugural running, Ferrari chief designer Nikolas Tombazis stated on Autosport’s website “We need to do a lot of work, but we think that we are at a good point compared to what we are expecting on this first day.”

While today was only the first day of testing, Ferrari and McLaren will surely be looking to set more competitive times tomorrow. The world will be watching and certainly talking if the two Formula 1 powerhouses fail to climb further up the timesheets by the end of the Jerez engagement.