In conditions that were desperately wet at times a crowd of 15,000 watched Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso post the fastest time in the first day of testing at Mugello overnight. The two-time world champion set his time of 1:22.444 in the morning session which was mildy moist, to steal a Top Gear phrase.
In the afternoon session there was nothing mild about the weather. In fact the rain was so heavy a portion of the session was red flagged and some teams packed up early as a result.
Mark Webber was the next quickest for Red Bull, some 1.2 seconds behind Alonso’s time. Jean-Eric Vergne set the third fastest time in the Toro Rosso.
“It’s a shame about the rain, which complicated the running of this first day of testing and a shame for the spectators who deserved to see more of a show,” said Alonso. “We had a pretty busy work programme, but we only managed to get through a part of it. Therefore, it’s impossible to give a serious evaluation, especially as we did so little dry running.
“I can only say that, for me, it was a pleasure to be driving at this track again: the first and only other time was back in 2001, when I was testing for Minardi. It’s a spectacular track and it would be nice to be able to race on it!â€
A full list of times and more pics from Ferrari can be seen after the break.
2012 F1 in-season testing – Mugello (Day 1)
- Fernando Alonso, Ferrari – 1:22.444 (46 Laps)
- Mark Webber, Red Bull – 1:23.648 +1.204s (24 Laps)
- Jean-Eric Vergne, Toro Rosso – 1:23.891 +1.447s (32 Laps)
- Jerome D’Ambrosio, Lotus – 1:24.048 +1.604s (40 Laps)
- Nico Rosberg, Mercedes AMG – 1:24.100 +1.656s (49 Laps)
- Kamui Kobayashi, Sauber – 1:24.736 +2.292s (48 Laps)
- Oliver Turvey, McLaren – 1:25.303 +2.859s (30 Laps)
- Jules Bianchi, Force India – 1:25.475 +3.031s (19 Laps)
- Rodolfo Gonzalez, Caterham – 1:27.197 +4.753s (35 Laps)
- Charles Pic, Marussia – 1:27.359 +4.915s (45 Laps)
- Valtteri Bottas, Williams – 1:29.179 +6.735s (28 Laps)
- Gary Paffett, McLaren – 1:50.898 +28.454s (4 laps)
- Michael Schumacher, Mercedes AMG – No time
