F1 Pre-Season Test Week 4: Barcelona 8th - 11th March

From the Video Shimmy posted, the Renault, McLaren and Red Bull cars all have a very distance crack/pop sound from the front (exhaust sound!) on slow down.

Trick exhausts sound tasty :D
 
englishpremier said:
I don't for 1 second think that Sauber have the quickest car.
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Neither do I. But they do look like they're within biting distance of the top teams, meaning they should score podiums at a few races where the track suits them and their drivers perform. However... they looked like that last pre-season, and IIRC the season before too - so I'll hold judgement until the first race.
 
tyres seem to be holding up beter on the long runs now, guess they like the heat of the track like pirelli was telling us a few weeks ago
 
Day 3 times:

Code: 
[b]Pos  Driver             Team/Car                   Time        Gap       Laps[/b]
 
1.  Sergio Perez	Sauber-Ferrari C30	   1:21.761	          95	
2.  Felipe Massa	Ferrari 150° Italia	   1:22.092     + 0.331	  132
3.  Mark Webber	        Red Bull-Renault RB7	   1:22.466	+ 0.705	  97
4.  Rubens Barrichello	Williams-Cosworth FW33	   1:22.637	+ 0.876	  105
5.  Michael Schumacher	Mercedes W02	           1:22.892	+ 1.131	  89
6.  Nick Heidfeld	Renault R31	           1:23.541	+ 1.780	  32
7.  Heikki Kovalainen	Lotus-Renault T128	   1:23.990	+ 2.229	  40
8.  Vitaly Petrov	Renault R31   	           1:24.233	+ 2.472	  24 
9.  Adrian Sutil	Force India-Mercedes VJM04 1:24.334	+ 2.573	  108
10. Jaime Alguersuari	Toro Rosso-Ferrari STR6	   1:24.779	+ 3.018	  107
11. Jerome d’Ambrosio	Virgin-Cosworth MVR-02	   1:27.336	+ 5.575	  96
12. Jarno Trulli	Lotus-Renault T128	   1:34.485     + 12.724  6

Perez topping the times not only today but of all testing so far in Barcelona.

P.S. Duke please tell me there's a place you c&p the times from already formatted, I've just done the one above c&p from f1fnatic but required lots of tweaking. PITA! :p
 
Torro Rosso have done 60 pit stops in the last 2 days alone, practice that is. Not just due to tyre degradation. :p

Ferrari have also done more mileage this winter than there is in a full season of GP races.
 
Type_R said:
I think it will be difficult to stop Teflonso this season :(
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I'm not sure.

Many people in F1 feel that the RBR is the fastest car. If RBR can provide Vettel with a car with a similar advantage as in 2010, Vettel could win the title by a very large margin.

What is evident is that RBR and Ferrari appear to be setting the pace, while McLaren are in the doldrums. As per usual, they have had a weak Winter and shall be playing catchup during the season and relying on their 2 drivers to make up the deficiency of a car unable to match the pace of Ferrari/RBR.

If Hamilton is once again given a car which can't consistently compete for race wins, he has to start thinking of moving to another team. The years are now passing by and he can't waste these years away in a team which is consistently behind the opposition and relies on his skill (or rain) to make up the gap.
 
Type_R said:
Well if you can get away with it, then why not!

Red Bull seem to be afforded the same level of FIA standards as Ferrari!!
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I agree 100% on both points.

If other teams are too thick to catch on to the flexi wings then they deserve to get pummelled.

When those flexi wings were in full display last year, one of my first tasks would've been to replicate them and fit them onto my own car.

I think the problem is that creating those flexi wings (such that they pass FIA scrutiny, but still bend enough to give their cars a performance advantage), is what other teams are struggling to re-produce. RBR have found a way to reliably manufacture the FIA approved flexi wings.

Last year, I would've said that RBR were playing unfair. Over the Winter though, other teams have had a chance to develop their own flexi wings and if they don't use them this year, they are 100% to blame.

Whenever I see video tours of McLaren's HQ, I'm always in awe at how advanced and space age it looks. It looks as if no expense is spared on anything. Yet, I find it strange that over the Winter, they struggle to make a car which can win on dry tracks and they seem to struggle to copy trick pieces that other teams have invented.

Personally, I want to see Hamilton go head to head with Alonso and Vettel, but sadly, at this point, I don't think we are going to see much of this happen this season.
 
Why are Mclaren so poor over the winter months? They have the budget and the facility's to make a car on par with the top runners it would seem.

Is it time for a design team change up?

They always seem to develop the car at a fast rate during the season, It's confusing me.

EJ on one of the pre-view interviews on BBC, said something about letting a different designer have a crack each season? Is this true?
 
I wouldn't say that McLaren are "poor" per se, they just aren't up to the standards of RBR and Ferrari.

However, given the resources they have at their disposal, one would be forgiven for thinking that the would produce better F1 cars.
 
Are McLaren poor, or are they just a little behind where we expect them to be? It's clear they are a team who pride themselves on innovation and new ideas so they take the risks.

McLaren haven't really had any domination in years and the titles have been close, even last season they were still within a shout towards the end of the season, it wasn't a no hope season like the one prior. The last major rule change and the lack of testing has clearly hurt them and other teams too. Testing allows the teams to catch up to each other and start the season with a bang. Now we have teams 'guessing' in the factory what might be a quick package and hoping for the best come practice that race and then we see teams coming out the woodwork with more pace and throwing more points on the board to make the title interesting.

I suppose it's what you find more entertaining. Season long development and drama, or most teams showing their hand on day one and never really recovering? With the current testing scheme all teams are playing some sort of catch up, be with against other teams or their own original ideas. We're too quick to start hammering nails into McLarens season, even though they are being modest about their situation they aren't a million miles off the pace. We'll see tomorrow I suppose.
 
norbert said:
"So far here we have not run on lighter fuel loads. The decent thing to do is to have a set-up that is like the middle of the race, and then you can roughly guess where you are weight-wise.

"It is a compromise between full and empty, and it is a base from which you can work.
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schumies longer runs from today are looking pretty competive if they were on half tanks, i suspect tommorow with more updates they wont seem to far behind ferrari and RB.

they seem to have got the tyre degredation in hand now aswell
 
arknor said:
schumies longer runs from today are looking pretty competive if they were on half tanks, i suspect tommorow with more updates they wont seem to far behind ferrari and RB.

they seem to have got the tyre degredation in hand now aswell
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Things can change very quickly in F1. Tomorrow may bring more shocks/suprises ;)
 
Did McLaren test the F duct last year during testing, or was it something they brought to the car at the first racing? Wondering if other teams are holding back
 
Tweaker said:
Did McLaren test the F duct last year during testing, or was it something they brought to the car at the first racing? Wondering if other teams are holding back
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They had it in on in the latter tests iirc. Remember there being a lot of speculation as to what it was or even its purpose.
 
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