Ferrari: We almost start from scratch in FP3

Friday, 07 October 2022 at 12:35

While both Mercedes and the two Red Bulls hogged the top four places on the timing screens at the end of today's first day of practice for the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix at a soaked Suzuka, while Ferrari were out at sea but unstressed about it.

However, the Reds treated the result as an anomaly on a very wet Friday at the iconic venue. Both drivers expect to get better on Saturday, of course, when it is expected to be dry and more in line with the weather prediction for Sunday.

Suzuka is well known for its volatile weather around GrandPrix time in Japan, where weather forecasts are as flimsy as the volatile temper of the local weather tends to have an agenda of its own. Hence no alarm bells in the Scuderia's garage.

At the end of the day, Carlos Sainz was the quicker of the Ferrari pair, his best effort was 1.269s off the top time set by George Russell in the Mercedes. Charles Leclerc was 11th, 2.774s adrift.

However, the Monegasque was unperturbed in the team report he said: "Overall, it was a good first day on track in terms of performance. While FP1 went well and I had a good feeling in the car, I can’t say much about FP2 as my tyres were completely worn out.

"The weather [Saturday] should be quite different to what we saw today, so FP3 will be a very important session for us to adapt to the conditions as quickly as possible in preparation for qualifying."

We expect a very busy Saturday

leclerc sainz japanese gp 2020 Ferrari: We almost start from scratch in FP3

Sainz summed-up his Friday: "It’s been a very wet Friday, which normally means not a lot of running, but today the conditions were stable and we were able to test both the Intermediates and the Wet tyres.

"We’ve managed to learn a couple of things in these wet conditions so overall we can say it’s been a productive Friday. Now it’s time to prepare for qualifying," added Sainz.

Looking ahead to Saturday, Ferrari reported: "We expect a very busy day, preparing the cars for both qualifying and the race, which is due to be run on a dry track. It is therefore almost a case of starting from scratch in FP3."

Ahead of Round 18, of the 2022 F1 World Championship, on Sunday Leclerc has started from pole position on nine occasions, with Sainz starting from the top spot on a further two occasions; making it 11-from-17 but only five turned into wins for Ferrari.