FORUMula1.com - F1 Forum

[racechick]

Agreed with spanky, if the race weekend started *now*, Redbull will be leading with Ferrari snapping at their heels. Renault will be best of the rest.

McLaren are an unknown factor, my belief is that they have gone with a design which will take time to unlock its full potential, the challenge for them is to do that ASAP. If they take mroe than 4 or 5 races to do it, the Championship is already lost.

Also lewis said, 'we've tested different bits and it feels good-better than lst year. I cant wait to put it all together'. Which suggestes that at the time he aid that, they hadnt run with all the new bits on togethr....were still testing them onme at a time.

[spankyham]

Autosport blogged this just after Lewis finally got back out on track. He did one lap of a 10 lap run.

10:18 A man with a fire extinguisher is peering into the McLaren's rear end as it's pushed into the garage.

[spankyham]

Now Ferrari's turn for some bad news:-

11:11 The Ferrari is stopped sideways on the grass and edge of the track on the outside of Turn 7.

Felipe had a spin, fortunately they say he didn't hit anything .... phew

[Robert12010]

just hopefully mclaren can get on top of the reliability, a bit more pace and they'll be fine

[vaptin]

Now Ferrari's turn for some bad news:-

11:11 The Ferrari is stopped sideways on the grass and edge of the track on the outside of Turn 7.

Felipe had a spin, fortunately they say he didn't hit anything .... phew

Ruddy Felipe

Webber doing a race simulation, it seems to me that redbull are well into their program, everything seems to be on track with them.

Ricciardo driving for Torro Rosso,

BBC F1 pit-lane reporter Ted Kravitz in Barcelona: "More bad news for McLaren. The car has an as-yet-unspecified technical problem. A hydraulics failure deprived Jenson Button of a lot of running yesterday and now it's Lewis Hamilton's turn to suffer lost track time through unreliability. It's going to take at least a couple of hours to fix; the team hope to have the car running after lunch."

BBC F1 pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz: "Mark Webber's race simulation comes to an end with a final lap in the 1:27s, pretty much idential to the lap times that Felipe Massa is doing towards the end of his long run. It does seem genuinely difficult to find out which of these two cars is the class of the field. Only qualifying at the first race will give us the true answer."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsp ... 402676.stm

Some insights here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsp ... 403032.stm

[bud]

Lewis finished with 92 laps, not so bad in the end.

[Hammer278]

Rosberg set the fastest time of the whole week as well...come on the silver teams!!!

[Robert12010]

Lewis finished with 92 laps, not so bad in the end.

and he still seems upbeat i just love lewis' positive energy

[cap-dude]

McLaren don't sound confident, even by their own admissions. Hmm. I actually had a hunch they'd be the ones to watch this year. McLaren apparently invest more money than anyone on tyre technology and simulations, and last time there was a big tyre change, 2007, they were the class of the feild. I was thinking there would be a similar trend this year, but not so apparently.

We usually have a key-word every year. Wheelbase, double diffuser, f-duct, blown diffuser. This year really, I'm thinking it'll just be tyres. I watched a few races from 2007 recently, and watched some of the features ITV did back then, and one was about how Massa and Lewis had gotten the jump on their more experienced and renowed team-mates. Simple answer was that experience didn't count for squat, if that experience was on a different set of tyres. It was all level pegging.

Sadly we don't have a rookie in a Red Bull or Ferrari this year. Closest thing really is Petrov in the Renault. Could he be one to watch? I wouldn't bet on it personally, but it's a space to watch none the less.

There's a lot of talk about overtaking this year. We have the addition of higher tear wear and adjustable rear wings to aid overtaking. The new tyres are creating marbles offline to a pretty extreme extend apparently, which will making braking offline a prickly situation. Will that aid overtaking, making covering the inside a more risky option, or make going around the outside of someone an impossbility. Who knows. Some say the adjustable rear wing won't even work. Personally, I'll wait and see.

In terms of the actual pecking order. I haven't been watching the times at all. After all these years, we know they're just a bunch of random pointless numbers. Hispania will be pathetic as ever I expect. They gave some called Giogio Mondini a test. Apparently he's on Kolles book's. But really, are they struggling that much to find drivers. Virgin don't look like they've come up the pack much. Lotus on the other hand really seem to have clawed their way into the mid-feild. The mid-feild will probably be a mush of Mercedes, Sauber, Williams, Toro Rosso, Force India and Lotus. Ferrari and Red Bull on top, with Renault in there looking for the odd victory. McLaren, are the unknown really.

[Hammer278]

Despite Nico Rosberg setting the fastest time of the Barcelona test on Sunday afternoon, Mercedes boss Norbert Haug does not believe the car would finish in the top ten if a race was held today.

Both Rosberg and team-mate Michael Schumacher have played down the pace of the new W02 in recent weeks and the team has struggled with a few reliability issues. But Haug has admitted that the car would not even feature in the points if it went up against the competition in its current specification.

"We know that at the moment our car is not good enough for the top ten, but we had been hampered by having to cut holes because of temperature problems, and also Nico had been without KERS," he told Auto Motor und Sport. "Our plan is that with our new aerodynamics package we close much of the gap and have the car good enough for the podium."

The W02's upgrades are scheduled for the final test, and with those improvements in mind, Schumacher is still targeting a return to the winners' circle.

"Our goal is the same as it was a few weeks ago," he told Speed Week. "With this car we want to be on the podium and, if things go well, maybe win a race."

______________________________

Sounds like Mercedes has lost their way a bit. I believe when a team suffers from 'cooling' issues during the off season testing it means their design has gone too aggressive or the approach was not creative enough to work around the rules effectively. McLaren 2004 anyone? The testing was all about cooling issues and the car was a lame dog.

Merc might want to run an interim version for the first quarter and introduce a "B" version after, basically treat the first quarter as an extended test session. Why not? If they're outside the top 10 at this stage (a month left) they're wasting their time putting all the resources in this car.

[cap-dude]

You know what this is actually reminding me off, back when Mercedes was actually Honda, after they won their first race in 2006, in 2007 they just dropped off the map. Again after winning several races and the championship this time in 2010, they are again slowly dropping of the map. It's almost as if it's in that teams dna. Even Ross Brawn can't seem to save this sinking ship.

[Jamie]

The testing is very mixed? I can't make any sort of judgment really. Because Rosberg is there? Renault? What is going on. If this is a prediction for things to most certainly come....2011 will be exceptional...So much better than 2010...We can only hope for 6 contenders in the closing stages...


Look out for Di Resta...I have a good feeling for this scot

[vaptin]

Mclaren had a lot of laps today, should be useful for them of course.

On the other hand, that Mercedes seems plagued with issues,

Massa tested tyres and did a quali simulation at the end of the day, which saw him take the top time for the session but Schumacher caused a red-flag.

[IceManpjn]

As a McLaren/Hamilton fan, I'm growing increasingly worried. I still would like to see Hamilton win him a second championship. After seeing the more radical MP4-26 design I was hoping this would be the car to get him there, but so far I haven't been seeing it.

[What's Burning?]

Hispania Racing have not been present for the entire day of testing in Barcelona on Monday, with the Murcia-based team having departed the Circuit de Catalunya in the early hours of the morning.

After running with 2011 driver Narain Karthikeyan on Friday, the Colin Kolles-run squad elected to place ex Force India racer Vitantonio Liuzzi in its cockpit for Saturday before Karthikeyan returned alongside Switzerland’s Giorgio Mondini on Sunday.

Although no official reason for the early departure has been issued by Hispania, paddock sources close to GPUpdate.net have explained that the team’s trucks left the track at around 2am on Monday morning.

This is one of those news items for the day that can be very telling if you read between the lines, or it can be nothing at all. Out of money, out of option, out sponsorship deals, out of hope? All of the above?