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[RyRy]

Exactly, that's what I was thinking rc, they look beyond good.

[overboost]

Rosberg set an impressive 1m . 23.341 and he's on mediums. Which is effectively 1.8 faster than Grisjean who has the fastest time but is on super softs.

Comment from Autosport live.....
" 16:22 Just to quantify how good that Rosberg lap is - Pirelli says the super-soft is 1.5s-2s quicker than the medium.."

It was a 1m24.321. But still a good time considering the tires.

FASTEST TIMES

P Driver Team Time
1 Romain Grosjean Lotus 1m24.067s
2 Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m24.321s +0.254
3 Daniil Kvyat Red Bull 1m24.941s +0.874
4 Felipe Nasr Sauber 1m24.956s +0.889
5 Valtteri Bottas Williams 1m25.345s +1.278
6 Carlos Sainz Jr Toro Rosso 1m25.604s +1.537
7 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m26.312s +2.245
8 Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1m26.591s +2.524
9 Fernando Alonso McLaren 1m27.956s +3.889

[CookinFlat6]

The ss is 1.5 - 2 secs faster, so the Merc is potentially 1.2 - 1.7 faster than a Merc customer.

However Lewis has confirmed that Merc are not even trying to go fast at all till the last test. so add another 1 sec for effort. Paddy has said they are not adding performance or aero updates till then, so another 2 secs compared to how others have gained.

So about 5 seconds quicker than a Merc customer, now lets assume Renault and Ferrari have not matched Merc engine gains over winter, we could bolt another second for the engine difference widening a little.

Then we need to add another 1 sec for the speed difference between Mercs drivers and the rest, thats up to 7 secs, say we were Gary Anderson we would have to round it up to 10 to get the number of words up to the invoicing limit

Merc are 10 seconds faster!!!!

[racechick]

Apologies Overboost, I was copying the figures across and got the digits wrong. It was indeed 1m 24.321.

[Hammer278]

The ss is 1.5 - 2 secs faster, so the Merc is potentially 1.2 - 1.7 faster than a Merc customer.

However Lewis has confirmed that Merc are not even trying to go fast at all till the last test. so add another 1 sec for effort. Paddy has said they are not adding performance or aero updates till then, so another 2 secs compared to how others have gained.

So about 5 seconds quicker than a Merc customer, now lets assume Renault and Ferrari have not matched Merc engine gains over winter, we could bolt another second for the engine difference widening a little.

Then we need to add another 1 sec for the speed difference between Mercs drivers and the rest, thats up to 7 secs, say we were Gary Anderson we would have to round it up to 10 to get the number of words up to the invoicing limit

Merc are 10 seconds faster!!!!

Damn....still would be an interesting season to see how many times they could lap the rest in every race.

In all seriousness though, I predict the gap to be about the same as last season. If not slightly more. Surely the rest had way more scope for improvement compared to Merc and with the PUs dialed in they've made an automatic half a second catch up on Merc already.

[racechick]

Merc were replying to tweets yesterday when people were asking, 'when are you going to unleash it?' ' When will you go for performance?' And their replies were along then lines of ........testing is for testing........qualifying at Melborne is the time for that.

[Hammer278]

So they going to keep raising hopes of everyone else just to make them cry their eyes out in Melbourne? Cool

[RyRy]

So they going to keep raising hopes of everyone else just to make them cry their eyes out in Melbourne? Cool

That's actually pretty smart and it actually makes Mercedes look even better than it is, some will perceive it as since testing they've gained over a second in performance when really it was already there.

If they think they still have one more year of dominating then next year they should go all out and top every session they can in testing.

[CookinFlat6]

I read it as 2 years after this. The new regs are to be formulated and agreed in 2017, so Merc have 2015,2016,2017. Ofcourse chances are they ill sew up the nxt era as well, as they are far ahead enough to commit to the new regs once they are agreed. And they wont be anywhere as major as the 2014 shift.

I think Merc will be focused on perfect reliability this year, looking to set records for races won, 1/2s, so we will only ever see their real advantage sparingly and will have to extrapolate it most of the time

I think the target must be 100% 1/2 finishes this season - that feat would be worth all the advertising in the world and would remove the bickering from the other teams from thhistory books

[racechick]

I Agree re reliability. I don't think it sat well that Merc dropped the ball three times last year and also that there were lost one/ two's. Reliability was Mercs biggest enamy last year, so it makes sense that that's what they're addressing in testing.

[vaptin]

I wouldn't say anyone else's hopes have been raised, the mood seems to be clearly that Mercedes have a dominant car.

So, to take a guess at the order, also I'm guessing at indicating relative pace:

Mercedes




Williams

Redbull
McLaren

Ferrari
Lotus


STR

Sauber

Force India



Caterham


Manor (if they race?)

[racechick]

Not sure I'd put Mclaren third, not for the first half of the season anyway.

[darwin dali]

I wouldn't say anyone else's hopes have been raised, the mood seems to be clearly that Mercedes have a dominant car.

So, to take a guess at the order, also I a guess at indicating relative pace:

Mercedes




Williams

Redbull
McLaren

Ferrari
Lotus


STR

Sauber

Force India



Caterham


Manor (if they race?)

Me thinks there's a better chance that Marussia/Manor will race than the defunct Caterham outfit

[vaptin]

Not sure I'd put Mclaren third, not for the first half of the season anyway.

I'd say they have a good team, good drivers, and an attention grabbing design. They themselves seem reasonably happy and positive about it. The main problem seems to be operational reliability, but someone pointed out Redbull had similar issues last year as well. Engine wise, the team are running turned down.

I wouldn't say anyone else's hopes have been raised, the mood seems to be clearly that Mercedes have a dominant car.

So, to take a guess at the order, also I a guess at indicating relative pace:

Mercedes




Williams

Redbull
McLaren

Ferrari
Lotus


STR

Sauber

Force India



Caterham


Manor (if they race?)

Me thinks there's a better chance that Marussia/Manor will race than the defunct Caterham outfit

Probably still be faster

Nah, caught me out there, it's weird not having as many teams on the grid!

[CevertF1]

Well, unless someone makes a major breakthrough, we'll have a very boring season on our hands.