planetf1.com

"Fernando Alonso will not take part in the first pre-season Formula 1 test at Jerez, with his Ferrari team electing to focus its efforts on Felipe Massa and Pedro de la Rosa that week.

Massa will drive the new Ferrari for the first three days at Jerez, which runs from February 5-8, with de la Rosa getting his maiden run for the Italian outfit on the final day."

"Alonso meanwhile will use that week to work on his physical condition, before he drives the Ferrari for the first three days of the Barcelona test that runs from February 19. Massa will then drive on the final day of that week.

For the final test that runs at Barcelona from February 28 to March 3, Alonso and Massa will split the driving duties.

On Thursday (28) and Saturday (March 2) of that test, Massa will drive, while Alonso will do the other two days."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/105262

Odd to say the least, I wonder what could have happened to make him miss the first test. I doubt it's something to do with a sponsor agreement because, its the first test and they don't usually have 4-day events.

Unless they just want to get Pedro in the car for a while.

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Forza Fernando !

Good on Ferrari. They clearly do want Felipe to be comfortably from word go this year and this will sooth him mentally too IMO. He gets the car first and he gets one mor day in total than Fernando.

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Maybe they'd want feedback from drivers who find it harder to drive around problems. Still, a strange decision.

Maybe Massa is better at developing the car .

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Que the conspiracy theories...

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#10

Force India delaying naming their drivers. Alonso missing the first pre-season test. Just join the dots... (or perhaps he's off to Mercedes too - well everybody else is so why not?)

Not possible.




Im so glad you beat me to it.

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Massa is only a test driver a the end of the day so he is just doing his job

Is not the first test by and large systems checks for the new cars though, quite routine and perhaps boring stuff really that the test driver can do?

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I was thinking that myself. They do more work at Barca. Either way, its not exactly a disaster. Now if the situation was reversed and it was Massa missing the first test.....................

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Forza Fernando !

GO SUPER PEDRO. Why are they putting Pedro to good use but didn't do so with Fisi? Both are hugely experienced, strikes me as a missed opportunity for the past 3 cars...

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Official Kamui Kobayashi Fanboy

I think Alonso rates Pedro as a good test driver possibly from his time at McLaren, it could be his influence that got Pedro the drive in the first place?

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PFI Pick 10 Competition

Current Standing: 16th

I was going to post something similar on the Force India drivers thread when I first read it, but was afraid some one would take me seriously.

I don't think this test matters much as to pure performance. It will consist primarily of shake down tests and long run/reliably tests mixed in with new tyre tests and feedback.

I don't see how choosing one driver driver over another will give better results in these early tests.

A smart move to get Alonso on later tests that will be more towards tweaking of the car.

I think Alonso was tired from all the PR activities he has had to do after the end of the season and also Vroom( or Wroom). He just wanted a few more days off before the start of the season.

Just a thought but they only bring one car for pre-season tests, correct? If that's the case, maybe they just want to minimize having to adjust the car (e.g. rip out the seat and change it for another driver) for each driver during the 4 days?

They feel it's a must for De La Rosa to be in the car for at least one day so he can validate the simulator vs track. And if Alonso participates too, then they have to prepare the car for 3 different drivers, and have to switch the seats etc. twice over the course of the 4 days. Maybe it's just more efficient if they stick to 2 drivers?

Maybe Massa needs the practice more.

LMFAO ^^^^

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So Alonso has been slacking the entire winter and needs to do physical traning in order to be able to drive?

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Räikkönen - Vettel - Rosberg - Bottas

I think Alonso looked quite wiped out at the end of this season past. He may just be literally working on himself, to launch another challenge yet again. It is totally understandable, as nobody can continue like a machine. Heck, even machines need routine maintenance. No need to read more into it, unless you can come up with something hilarious.

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My Top 5 drivers of all times:
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3) Fangio
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if you don't like it, too bad! There's a reason why it says "My Top 5"

They could give Felipe an extra week testing the thing and he still wouldn't beat Alonso.

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It's fairly simple both drivers normally don't complete in every day of the tests. You will fi d another test fernando will go and massa not. Don't get to carry away here. They got a program and and working to it.

The car the tests at Jerez won't bare too much resemblance to the one that lines up in Melbourne anyway.

How do you think Massas timings will compare to De La Rosas timings?

I think DLR is one of the best for car development, but not raw speed, so will be interesting to see

funny how it is developing:

January 14th

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/80875

January 24th
Alonso will skip first tests.

Variant 1 - he drunk too much vodka during his visits to Russia over winter and needs to get back in shape

Variant 2 - Feedback from Mass and De la Rossa is better than his

Variant 3 - he pushed for De la Rossa to be hired especially to do 'boring' job

Variant 4 - they got some 2-year old ideas from McLaren (with Pedro) and trying to use them.

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Nah HRT were lined up for a Brawn style domination due to finding a loop hole in the rules unfortunately no money for entry fee scuppered their plans for a clean sweep. Pedro photocopied the designs and sold them to Ferrari in exchange for the seat.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

He's not injured is he?

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"I am a believer, but I start each Grand Prix with 195 liters of fuel behind me," he explains. "I don't rely entirely on God, I rely on Prost."

For my money, I don't see this as any big deal.
I'm sure Alonso doesn't need the aggro of stop/start initial testing, when loads of reliability issues and niggles can show up? Indeed, it really should be the test drivers who sort/check those things? Initial testing will about reliability, function and everything working as it should, - hardly balls out speed tests, looking for the cars handling limits!
FWIW, I also think Alonso could jump into the car and get to grips with it in a short testing period - so I don't read anything into this story at all.

I partly agree with you.
On the other hand, if it wasn't so important, why do the other teams send their top drivers to the test?

I don't see what the fuss is. In the first test, Massa is taking all the days. In the second, Alonso is taking all of the days but one. In the third test, they're sharing the days 50-50. There could be a conspiracy, or they could just be divvying up the days to make it roughly half-half.

On the other hand, it's a huge pro-Massa scandal and Alonso has fallen out of favour with the Ferrari team after failing to hide his disappointment post-Brazil during a trip to Maranello.

Or maybe Ferrari intend on bringing out a new, top-secret design at the second test and want Alonso to get his hands on it first, but don't want to compromise Felipe by giving Fernando a majority of the days in testing.

Fundamentally, you can't say.

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I also have one of these.

I always under the impression that Ferrari alternated between the drivers as to who does the first test each year.

Perhaps the mentality is that they feel their drivers need more time to get to know the car? or that they just don't expect initial niggles? Obviously, I don't know the logic behind the team driver decisions, but I do think the top drivers will learn any car in a relatively few laps, so I don't think it's any special deal who starts initial testing! The important testing comes after a few runs, when they need to start looking at set up changes for individual driver preferences, etc. As a general rule, pre-season testing never gives us much clue as to real pace for 1st race, does it? - we usually get to deduce a general pecking order, sometimes with an obvious car (e.g. Brawn 09) advantage being seen - but more often they are all much of a muchness and a good deal of either teams panicking or sandbagging! Of recent years, I tend to think preseason testing has been a bit of a flop for the fans?

I wonder with it being another long season if Alonso sees a way of effectively shortening his by starting off a few weeks later than everyone else?

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

He's playing mind games with the season.


Man, there are some really special excuses in here.

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Finger in the wind #1:
On initial tests the job is mainly to collect data from a pre-established series of routines, nothing that requires expert work. Now in the second run of tests a driver can actually give some input based on the data collected from the previous tests.

Finger in the wind #2:
Alonso is getting married somewhere away from Italy, getting this out of the way so his GF doesn't nag on his ears during the season /joke?

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Supporting N#2s since 1995.

All part of Massa's evil plan to become WDC.

MUAHAHAHA!

Not mind games. But with the rumours he was feeling the effects of the long season towards the end. An attempt to try and stay fresher towards the end of the season to avoid the tapering off he had.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Not much really. As many have said already the 1st test is not really about performance but rather about system checks, installations, etc and maybe some mileage near the end to get some reliability going. In any case I believe drivers don't really make that much of a difference during the development. The speed and consistency of a good driver probably still outweighs any technical knowledge he has even during development/testing.

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Yeah I knew what you meant. I was just adding my own special excuse.

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