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[CookinFlat6]

Lewis Hamilton has put Ferrari's pace in pre-season testing down to "shorter" "attacking runs" at the Jerez circuit.

The Scuderia finished the four-day Jerez test with a hat-trick of P1s with Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel setting the two fastest times overall.

Mercedes meanwhile were fourth and sixth on the list with Nico Rosberg and Hamilton more than a second off the pace.

And while some may want to believe it is a sign of massive improvement from Ferrari, Hamilton reckons it is down more to the style of runs Ferrari were conducting.

It is said by Ferrari insiders that both Ferrari and Sauber were so lightly fuelled every singl day that both cars actually ran out of fuel at least once and it was disguised as somethging else.

I can see why Sauber would celebrate their laptimes, but for Ferrari to do the same is just setting their fans up like last year

[Jabberwocky]

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[sagi58]

So... until something is confirmed by a team, it's a rumour, right?
So why do we buy into "insider" information?

[Jabberwocky]

Maybe a rumour was started from outside the team who could just be guessing.

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[sagi58]

I think, as humans, we like to know what to expect, so we often will speculate, when we don't know.
As long as we're open about it, there's nothing wrong with that!

[darwin dali]

I think, as humans, we like to know what to expect, so we often will speculate, when we don't know.
As long as we're open about it, there's nothing wrong with that!

I speculate that you look somewhat like this:

[sagi58]

I think, as humans, we like to know what to expect, so we often will speculate, when we don't know.
As long as we're open about it, there's nothing wrong with that!

I speculate that you look somewhat like this:

And, I am liberty to confirm some tats!!

[vaptin]

"What we learned from F1 testing"
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula1/31136827


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Anyway, Mercedes certainly still look to be top, and have a clear advantage to the point of consistent predictability.

And still not so much from Mclaren, might be good, might be terrible. They don't seem too worried about their pace being down however. But where they'll slot in I think is still a question mark.

[RyRy]

There was a post on reddit that actually got removed, someone who works for one of the F1 teams said that it was well known throughout the paddock that Mercedes were running heavy fuel and working on the the Engine reliability, sometimes with the engines turned up but not pushing so they could tax the engines without showing their pace. He also pointed out that Ferrari and Sauber were doing the opposite and were focusing on speed rather than reliability.

He did say though that the testing times meant nothing because all of the teams could have done a 1:20 or faster if they wanted to.

The message was only up for an hour until he deleted his account.

[What's Burning?]

Every year it's the same story. There's nothing wrong with starting the season hoping springs eternal.

[RyRy]

Every year it's the same story. There's nothing wrong with starting the season hoping springs eternal.

Yeah, has the fastest car at the first test in the last 5 years actually ever won the championship(s)?

[CookinFlat6]

Every single year since they won something Ferrari have been very fast at the tests, generating a lot of excitement amongst their fans, with Alonso noticeably not the most enthusiastic team member. Last year they promised an engine that would switch off at off throttle moments to save fuel, (like the adverts for road going direct fuel injection claim), and they promised expensive exotic materials in the cooling system that would create new standards in weight saving. And each year previously they have been at their most optimistic at the first test.

Whats unique this time round, is that Arrivabene and Sergio have both stated before the tests that they had little hope of matching the top end, at least not before the end of the season, and gave reasons like starting late, new staff etc

It could be that this year is going to be massively different to the normal pattern of suddenly becoming slow by the final test and deferring competitiveness till later on

Arrivabene claimed it was Merc sandbagging that made Ferrari suddenly look like contenders. However it appears Merc did exactly what they normally do, - test

Maybe Ferrari are actually pretending Merc are sandbagging to hide their true speed, could Ferrari have a surprise to spring after all these years? under fueling to the point of running out of fuel could be a ruse to conceal some massive breakthru on the car

[sagi58]

Thanks to the limited testing teams have, is it any wonder each chooses to work on its "weakness"?
Why would Ferrari work on reliability, when theirs was pretty strong last year?
Why would Mercedes spend time on speed, when they had that in aces last year?