It was a positive day for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, with a lot of work completed and signs of being competitive. In the morning session, the team worked mainly on the evaluation of various new technical solutions for forthcoming races and on a comparison of some aerodynamic configurations. In the afternoon, the focus switched to finding the best set-up on the F10 and a comparison of the two types of tyre brought here by Bridgestone. “Overall, we are reasonably pleased with what we have seen today,” said Stefano Domenicali. “The car seems to be competitive, although it has to be said that the Red Bulls were very strong. Now we must prepare as well as possible for qualifying and the race, with the aim of picking up a lot of points, continuing in the same vein as we began in Hockenheim.”

Fernando Alonso: “I hope we can stay close to our main rivals, who seemed very strong today and be able to fight them in Q3 tomorrow afternoon. For now, we are still a bit behind by a few tenths, even if we won’t know the truth until qualifying. We certainly need to work on the set-up of the car to improve its performance, especially in the second and third sectors. Compared to Hockenheim, where the car was well balanced, here we are suffering with a bit too much understeer, but all the same it feels pretty good. We did various aerodynamic tests and, in the end, it seems the car is more competitive without the blown rear wing. Overall, we are happy with how things went today, even if we are well aware that one cannot rely much on Friday’s times. As for McLaren, whom one should not forget lead both championships, we seem to have the upper hand, but so often we have seen them struggle on a Friday before then being very competitive. Tomorrow afternoon, it will be very important to secure a place in the top three because it would be hard to fight for the win starting further back.”

Felipe Massa: “As has generally been the case this year, we need to work on our performance on the first timed lap: our main rivals manage to set a time quickly while we struggle a bit more. This is vital, especially for qualifying which, at a track like this, is even more critical than usual. In particular, we have to get the front tyres working as well as possible. In terms of race pace, I would say we are pretty good, as was also demonstrated in Hockenhiem. Returning to driving at this track was not difficult for me: when you are in the car and you shut the visor, you only think about going quickly. It was definitely good yesterday to go to the medical centre and meet the people who took care of me immediately after the accident, and it was equally emotional to have dinner with the surgeon who operated on me at Budapest’s AEK hospital: I wish to take this opportunity to once again thank everyone for what they did for me one year ago; they are really extraordinary people.”

Chris Dyer: “It was a very busy day because we had so many irons in the fire. This morning, we concentrated on development of new solutions for the forthcoming races, almost like an old-style test day and we also tried to evaluate carefully the performance of some aerodynamic updates which we brought here, as well as looking at the behaviour of the F10 with and without the blown rear wing. In the second session, we went back to the standard Friday programme, looking at defining the best set up of the car and tyre work. We completed both programmes with no particular problems, apart from a small electrical fault towards the end on Alonso’s car, which prevented him from getting the most out of the long run on soft tyres. From what we have seen, the performance is reasonably good: we can expect a very close qualifying and we hope to be in the fight for the front rows.”

Hungaroring, 30 July – Allowing for the fact that it is dangerous to read too much significance into the results of Friday practice, because of the usual imponderables relating to tyre choice and fuel load through the field, Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro appears to have made a competitive start to the Hungarian Grand Prix weekend. Fernando Alonso ended the day second fastest, splitting the two dominant cars this season, the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel, who topped the time sheet and team-mate Mark Webber in third. Felipe Massa was right behind in fourth place.

The morning session at this circuit is always complicated, as the barely used track surface is very dirty and lacks grip, before gradually improving throughout the day, but the Scuderia had a busy time nevertheless, with Felipe running with and without the blown rear wing to evaluate what would be the best solution on this generally low speed track. The rest of the day was given over to the usual Friday work of analysing set-up and balance on the F10 and evaluating the two types of tyre the drivers must use for Sunday’s race. Vitaly Petrov was fifth for Renault, with his team-mate Robert Kubica seventh, while Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren was the meat in the French sandwich.

A productive day for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro then, which also owed something to the fact that the threat of rain did not materialise, although current forecasts predict the possibility of a storm just in time for the final Q3 part of tomorrow’s qualifying session.

Hungaroring, 30 July – The first free practice session for the Hungarian Grand Prix, the twelfth round of the Formula 1 World Championship, has just ended at the Hungaroring. Although the track was dry, as usual here, it was very dirty, with the Red Bulls of Sebastian Vettel (1.20.976) and Mark Webber (1.21.106) setting the two fastest times, followed by the Renault of Robert Kubica (1.22.072.)

Fernando Alonso was the quickest Ferrari driver, seventh fastest in 1.22.772, while team-mate Felipe Massa was twelfth in the other F10 in 1.23.007. The team spent this session concentrating on aero testing: Felipe drove with and without the blown rear wing, looking for the best qualifying set-up. Both Ferrari men did three runs, the first one on the harder tyres.

The second session gets underway here at 14.00.