Alonso Worried About Friday Mileage

Fernando Alonso believes the new rules imposed by the FIA in terms of Friday mileage will not allow teams to try out new things throughout the upcoming season. Having banned in-season testing in 2009 in an effort to reduce costs inside the sport, the FIA will therefore make it impossible for teams to further develop their cars through the 17 free-practice Fridays in 2009.

The two-time world champion also believes the Friday sessions will not see many drivers on the race track, as most of them will try to “be gentle” on their engines ahead of the much more important Saturday qualifying and Sunday race. As drivers are only permitted 8 engines per season in 2009, doing extra mileage on Friday would become a risk too high to take.

“If a team is testing new things on a Friday then I consider that to be panicking. Fridays are just to check if everything is working, to prepare for qualifying and the race. In the most extreme case, on Friday you make some setup changes, but also because of the engine rules, I do not expect drivers to do many laps,” said Alonso in an interview for Formule 1 Race Report.

Last year, almost all teams in Formula 1 operated several changes on their cars throughout the season, as they got to test the new modifications during in-season testing sessions. In 2009, however, the 2009 challengers are expected to end the season with slight or even no modifications as compared to the base model, as nobody is expected to take a chance with a new aerodynamic device after only one day of testing.