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The times in the pre-season tests are useless, the people of Formula 1 repeat like automatons. But the reality is that anyone, team or driver, would give an arm to be at the top of the table. There is Ferrari, on everyone’s lips for its optimal performance in three days of testing. That is where an illusion is born for Carlos Sainz, second year in the ‘prancing horse’ team and with the courage and tools to start a fight with Red Bull and Mercedes, the rulers of last year. In a lower segment appears the Alpine, Fernando Alonso’s blue and pink car, which yesterday gave off the worst signs. Smoke, break and withdrawal from the session. a skid
for the Asturian who lowers the enthusiasm of that unusual and cheap marketing campaign created by himself with the original sequence of ‘El Plan’.
Alonso has lived them in all colors in F1 Februarys. From the debut in 2001 with the ashen Minardi on the grid, the blue Renault that was already flying in the 2005 tests, the Ferrari that almost took it to the third title in 2010 or the Honda engine of the McLaren that did not start in 2015 and that he did, furious, go off to play paddle tennis. The driver returned to the sport on the encouragement of finding a dominant car in the big rule change and the ingenuity of the Alpine factories. Last year ‘The Plan’ was a consequence of the thousands of idle hours and coexistence that are processed on the weekends of the grand prizes. Now an awkward haze is drawn.
The pilot himself has recognized it. “I don’t know if I’m satisfied with the performance of the car or not, I’m happy in general, with the illusion of another preseason. I have mixed feelings, some positive because everything we had tried in the simulations is true, but we also have small problems of youth and you have to find a solution, “he said on TVE.
He commented on it before yesterday’s disappointment, that thick smoke that filled Montmeló with despair. Alpine resigned in the tests and both Alonso and Esteban Ocon were left without shooting on the third day after having completed the distance of four grand prix. “‘The plan’? I’m not so clear, I don’t know, I’m curious to see how we can go this year. Sometimes there are positive feelings, sometimes pessimistic», I consider. “If the team brings a spoiler to Bahrain (start of the World Cup) that makes us go faster, then we will go fast.”
In Ferrari there is a serene satisfaction with the behavior of the single-seater. In the Italian garage they assure that the first objective has been to go around the circuit many times to collect data, return to the Maranello factory and compare them with the simulator and the wind tunnel.
In truth, in the tests it is only appreciated if any team has problems because the engines are very heavy and the gasoline loads limit the speed. Nobody grants veracity to the stopwatch times because they are not races or classifications, but tests. It is a tactical game, in which some take pressure off and others add it. Alonso assures that “Ferrari seems the fastest car, it is a surprise”.
The Ferrari has not had a single problem for three days, except for the setback common to all: the bounces at the end of the straight due to the ground effect of the cars, so close to the asphalt. In the Italian team satisfaction spreads. There was a lot of hope in the aggressive design of the chassis and the engine that have been elaborated in the different departments of Maranello, where there is no single and magical engineer, like Adrian Newey in Red Bull or James Key at McLaren. The car works and Carlos Sainz is delighted.
In the Ferrari box they say that the car gives the Spanish driver a good ‘feeling’ because it has “very good balance”, despite the increase in weight that forces him to brake and rotate in another way. The man from Madrid believes that there is a good base to work on the next evolutions and that the team has taken a step forward. The Spanish driver appreciates the work done over the last year to give birth to this racing car that looks very different from the rest. The reality is that, except for the boost from Ferrari, it will not change F1 much: Red Bul and Mercedes are still the fastest.
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