Tyres the key says Fry

03/03/2013

After twelve days of pre-season testing, Ferrari Technical Director Pat Fry believes that, as in 2012, understanding the Pirelli tyres will be the key in Melbourne and beyond.

"All the teams, ourselves included, will still have a lot to learn about the tyres in Melbourne," he said at the conclusion of today's running. "The performance and the degradation of the tyres will be the determining factor in establishing how competitive everyone is.

"Albert Park is a partial street circuit," he continued, "it is only used for racing a few times during the year, so it will be interesting to see how the tyres behave in higher temperatures."

Asked the question that is on everyone's lips - who's hot and who's not - particularly with reference to his own team, he replied: "During these days of testing we have just concentrated on our own work programme. There are some quick cars but frankly our attention has been very much on the work linked to the F138's development, collecting data on the new parts that we have brought, especially in this final test.

"The positive thing is that our aerodynamic simulations - both from the wind tunnel and CFD - have given us the results we had been hoping to see on the track. You can never have a 100% correlation but this is an encouraging sign for the new parts that we aim to bring to the first races, starting in Melbourne."