F1 Testing 2014: Week 2 Bahrain

[sunama]

Would love to see mercy/McLaren battling it out for the win and Ferrari/RBR battling it out for the podium and the occasional win, that would be my dream 2014 season.

Don't count RBR out.
Last year they started out weak and far from a race winning package.
They then persuaded Pirelli the tyres they wanted and after some improvement during the Summer break, they came back and won every race, putting up a new record.

The way I see it, to kill RBR this year, rival teams need about 100-150 pts advantage over Vettel, BEFORE the Summer break. After the break, RBR have a history of outscoring the opposition.

Also, Vettel is now almost on equal terms with Alonso. Some may say Vettel is now the most complete driver in F1 and on his way to becoming the most decorated driver in F1 history. Once Vettel gets the best car, expect him to heavily outscore the opposition.

My favourite for this year's title race is RBR...reliability permitting.
RBR and Vettel are just too good.

 

[Shimmy]

Don't count RBR out.
Last year they started out weak and far from a race winning package.
They then persuaded Pirelli the tyres they wanted and after some improvement during the Summer break, they came back and won every race, putting up a new record.

The way I see it, to kill RBR this year, rival teams need about 100-150 pts advantage over Vettel, BEFORE the Summer break. After the break, RBR have a history of outscoring the opposition.

Also, Vettel is now almost on equal terms with Alonso. Some may say Vettel is now the most complete driver in F1 and on his way to becoming the most decorated driver in F1 history. Once Vettel gets the best car, expect him to heavily outscore the opposition.

My favourite for this year's title race is RBR...reliability permitting.
RBR and Vettel are just too good.

You're basing this assumption on that everyone will be on a level playing field power unit wise. Currently, that's for from the case and the engine freeze is at the end of this week.

And RBR's initial stumbling last year could be considered a drop in the ocean compared to the apparent tsunami of issues currently facing the team.

 

[englishpremier]

Isn't it the case? Caterham seem to be doing fine. If the other teams can't package the engine correctly then they deserve all they get.

 

[FrankJH]

You're basing this assumption on that everyone will be on a level playing field power unit wise. Currently, that's for from the case and the engine freeze is at the end of this week.

And RBR's initial stumbling last year could be considered a drop in the ocean compared to the apparent tsunami of issues currently facing the team.

And just like last time an engine manufacturer can apply for an engine "upgrade" after that date on the basis of reliability/ safety and it wll be granted even if they magically include an increase in power at the same time

 

[Mr Jack]

And just like last time an engine manufacturer can apply for an engine "upgrade" after that date on the basis of reliability/ safety and it wll be granted even if they magically include an increase in power at the same time

Which is a ridiculous rule fail that could be so trivially fixed.

 

[FrankJH]

Which is a ridiculous rule fail that could be so trivially fixed.

Totally agree - however unfortunately I doubt it ever will be

 

[Skeeter]

How could it be trivially fixed?

 

[Mr Jack]

Don't count RBR out.

I don't think anyone sensible is doing that yet; but they face a seriously uphill battle from here.

Last year they started out weak and far from a race winning package.

In what sense is two pole positions, two wins and four podiums from the first four races starting out weak? The Red Bull started 2013 strongly and finished it with total dominance.

The way I see it, to kill RBR this year, rival teams need about 100-150 pts advantage over Vettel, BEFORE the Summer break. After the break, RBR have a history of outscoring the opposition.

RBR show no more of a pattern of post-break development than other teams. What they show is the results of combining a huge budget with the best aerodynamicist in F1, reliable strategy and a good engine.

Also, Vettel is now almost on equal terms with Alonso. Some may say Vettel is now the most complete driver in F1 and on his way to becoming the most decorated driver in F1 history. Once Vettel gets the best car, expect him to heavily outscore the opposition.

Vettel has great stats, no doubt about, but he's got those stats in a clearly superior car. Vettel has never won the driver's championship in a car that hasn't won the Constructor's championship (for reference, neither's Alonso, Schumacher and Hakkinen did it once apiece and Hamilton did it in the only season he won. You could argue that this is simply luck of the draw, you can't blame the man for repeatedly landing the best car but I'm still far from convinced that Vettel deserves the stats he's got on the basis of talent alone. I'd love to see Alonso or Hamilton go head-to-head with Vettel in the same car.

And, yes, if RBR gives Vettel the best car again, you can expect him to win. Vettel is certainly consistent and reliable.

 

[drunkenmaster]

What a load of nonsense, Vettel was crap at the beginning of last year with a crap package and the summer break is the only thing that saved their season which was mostly down to tyres? Complete bull. He didn't finish lower than 4th and won more races than anyone else in the first half of the season and did so in the second half.

They refined the car more, and cruised to victory more often and that was in large part due to qualifying better in the second half of the season. It was THE fastest car in the first half of the season and the second half, he had several more poles in the second half of the season than the first.

The competition changed and Red bull adapted, they were never poor, they got a few tactical calls wrong early. To suggest they were rubbish, with Vettel not being outside the top 4, is ludicrous. Without being able to see a running total and without adding up everyone's points race by race it looks to me that Vettel led the title from the second race of the season and that lead started to increase in gap significantly from Monaco onwards. He got 100 more points than the previous year with 7 podiums in the first 10 races vs 3 podiums in the first 10 races in 2012....... how utterly dominant that car was in the second half of the season does not in any way take away from the fact it was quite easily the best, fastest race car and most consistent car on track in the first half of the season.

The comparison between Red Bull last year being a little weaker through the first half of the season(yet stronger than the previous year) and their inability to get in any real testing this year is barmy. However who knows what will happen before Melbourne, we know NOTHING yet.

Red Bull could turn out to have an engine that when it works makes the Merc look like a dog, or it could turn out that fixing the reliability turns the car into a slow but reliable piece of crap.

We have ZERO idea how good the Renault engine is when it works because the only team to put in any significant laps is so far down in pace on even the couple crawling laps TR/RBR managed before their engines cooked the car. We don't know if Merc engines reliability is down to being a slow engine, or if it's faster than Renault can manage, we don't know that Merc engines won't fail more often than not. We don't know a damn thing. The only things we do know are, Merc engines have run almost three times the distance in preseason testing, AND a lot faster for the majority of those laps, regardless of if RBR fix their cooling issues that is a HUGE and insurmountable amount of running data Merc have that Renault don't. But that also might be meaningless, RBR won't close that gap in the final test but that data may not provide Merc anything useful, you would be surprised if they couldn't find some efficiency improvements, some power saving/increases/hints at where reliability/temps/whatever should be heading. LIkewise for aero RBR have not only done exceptionally little running, they've done even less of that at what would appear to be race pace speeds and nothing at all even approaching qualifying speeds. In terms of aero, they can't have a brilliant idea of where to go with no real world testing at the real pace they will run in the season.

Testing has gone very badly, that doesn't immediately point to a poor car, but does point to other teams having a far better shot at points until RBR can get some real testing done and some real feedback on their parts at high speed. I would say they are certainly at a distinct disadvantage for the first 3-4 races of the season minimum. But we don't know where that disadvantage starts from. It could be the car is 5seconds faster than the Merc, and therefore is only 2 seconds faster till they fix these issues. They could have made a 5 second slower car, and be 8 seconds slower till they fix the problems.

we simple can't possibly know where Red Bull's car is till we see it attempting to run it's real pace which is hasn't done yet, there is no way this won't disadvantage them at all, it's a fact, but we don't know where their baseline is, we can guess but in reality we don't have a clue.

The reality is that they likely have to change the car fairly significantly IMHO to make the car actually run properly at all, bigger sidepods, better cooling, better packaging at which point the car could be anywhere performance wise, but I personally don't believe it's going to be great.

 

[SKILL]

How could it be trivially fixed?

Surely just get the FIA to dyno an engine at the point of the freeze, then dyno any proposed change, if it gives an increase in power then it's not allowed.

 

[Mr Jack]

How could it be trivially fixed?

Power-output of engines is relatively easy to measure so you could require that any reliability changes don't substantially increase the power-output thus preventing any teams from nudging up the BHP as they "improve reliability".

 

[this_is_gav]

But engine performance comes down to much more than power and torque. There's the drivability and fuel consumption (both of which are arguably far more important than every other attribute put together this year), size, weight, centre of gravity, heat, etc.

Frankly it would be nearly impossible to upgrade any component for reliability purposes and not have it affect performance in some way.

 

[Skeeter]

I don't think anyone has "substantially" increased power output with a reliability upgrade.

For a sport where a lot of people are calling for completely unregulated engines, suggesting they are locked down so tight they can't even fix reliability issues seems somewhat extreme.

Not saying your wrong, I think an open engine formula would be disasterous, but reliability upgrades is something all manufacturers can do, so its hardly an unfair advantage to any specific maker.

 

[Glaucus]

Don't count RBR out.
.

Where did I count them out?
Dream /= what I think will actually happen.

 

[Glaucus]

but reliability upgrades is something all manufacturers can do, so its hardly an unfair advantage to any specific maker.

Disagree totally due to the way its implemented.
The engine manufacturer has to ask the FIA for dispensation to change the engine. The main reason for the change has to be reliability, but if you get extra performance so be it.
Now Mercedes have very little chance of getting said dispensation, as they can't real prove unreliability.

Still rather be in Mercedes shows, but it does open up a very interesting avenue for Renault that pundits have already started chatting about. Basically as Renault is so unreliable, the engine freeze simply isn't going to affect them.

 

[smr]

Don't count RBR out.
Last year they started out weak and far from a race winning package.
They then persuaded Pirelli the tyres they wanted and after some improvement during the Summer break, they came back and won every race, putting up a new record.

The way I see it, to kill RBR this year, rival teams need about 100-150 pts advantage over Vettel, BEFORE the Summer break. After the break, RBR have a history of outscoring the opposition.

Also, Vettel is now almost on equal terms with Alonso. Some may say Vettel is now the most complete driver in F1 and on his way to becoming the most decorated driver in F1 history. Once Vettel gets the best car, expect him to heavily outscore the opposition.

My favourite for this year's title race is RBR...reliability permitting.
RBR and Vettel are just too good.

Wow, just so much fail in this post...where to start...

Firstly yes they started out "relatively weak" they weren't exactly midfield weak though and were always there sniffing about the podium until they got their foot down.

Secondly Pirelli won't be persuaded to do anything like last year, the compounds they're bringing are a lot different to last year's so there will be no in season tweak of them which could result in benefitting a particular team.

Thirdly, RBR are way behind their closest rivals in terms of track time and STILL haven't got a reliable car even a couple of days before the final test - the first practice session in Melbourne is what just SEVENTEEN days away!

They're massively on the backfoot, they can forget about going for wins until Europe at least, that's IF they have sorted their reliability out by then.

 

[Skeeter]

Disagree totally due to the way its implemented.
The engine manufacturer has to ask the FIA for dispensation to change the engine. The main reason for the change has to be reliability, but if you get extra performance so be it.
Now Mercedes have very little chance of getting said dispensation, as they can't real prove unreliability.

Still rather be in Mercedes shows, but it does open up a very interesting avenue for Renault that pundits have already started chatting about. Basically as Renault is so unreliable, the engine freeze simply isn't going to affect them.

But the alternative is leaving 1/3rd of the grid in a position where they may as well not bother to turn up?

I do think the reaction to this would be totally different if it was the other way round. Renault won't be allowed to gain an advantage, they will just be reducing their disadvantage. And in the grand scheme of things having 22 competitive cars is better than having 14 and 8 time bombs.

 

[Mr Jack]

For a sport where a lot of people are calling for completely unregulated engines, suggesting they are locked down so tight they can't even fix reliability issues seems somewhat extreme.

My preferred option would be a limited number of engines and free development.

But if you're going to lock down the engines; letting one manufacturer smuggle through performance upgrades as "reliability" fixes is pretty straight flaw in the system.

 

[Glaucus]

But the alternative is leaving 1/3rd of the grid in a position where they may as well not bother to turn up?

I do think the reaction to this would be totally different if it was the other way round. Renault won't be allowed to gain an advantage, they will just be reducing their disadvantage. And in the grand scheme of things having 22 competitive cars is better than having 14 and 8 time bombs.

That's not how the rules are worded, they are absolutely allowed to gain power as long as the main reason is reliability.

Doesn't really matter which way round it is. Its one of those rules which just doesn't work in practice.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Now Mercedes have very little chance of getting said dispensation, as they can't real prove unreliability.

Still rather be in Mercedes shows, but it does open up a very interesting avenue for Renault that pundits have already started chatting about. Basically as Renault is so unreliable, the engine freeze simply isn't going to affect them.

Every Merc car has broken down multiple times, how many times did the Renault cars break down before being allowed to have an update? Do we know the reliability fix wasn't something that wasn't causing a power reduction before failing and thus only put the engine back where it was?

Why do you presume every upgrade for reliability will increase power and why do you think the FIA will allow every upgrade on reliability grounds if they can see it's basically for power only.

Ultimately reliability is absolutely and in no way "proven" on Mercedes engines, nor has anything about the Renault engine been proven unreliable.

If one car can do 300 laps, and another 50 with the engine failing every time, is an engine "fix" required, or is the car that can only do 1/6 of the laps at fault through their own design? For all we know the Merc is seemingly reliable purely because it's only running at 90% to reduce temps, if/when a Renault car gets everything hooked up it could be spanking the Merc engine.

It also seems in a large part that a lot of Renault's problems were control problems, timings, issues. These can all potentially be solved and power increases can potentially be derived from simple software updates. The other fairly obvious thing to state is, I don't think RBR or Renault are focusing on power improvements right now, they are almost certainly working flat out on reliability improvements. Though the simple fact is that most reliability issues mean increased effective power. It's no surprised that the Renault doing the most laps is the slowest and best cooled. more reliable engine = ability to push it harder before failure. Improving reliability usually means you can use more of it's power.

They're massively on the backfoot, they can forget about going for wins until Europe at least, that's IF they have sorted their reliability out by then.

Renault could find one tiny little bug that has been ruining everything and once fixed the Renault could suddenly become the best engine on the grid. RBR may upgrade their cooling, make bigger side pods and find that as luck would have it, their existing aero package magically works great with bigger side pods and better cooling, they may suddenly be running with a cool engine and awesome aero. How likely that is, maybe not very likely but it's insane to rule out a car for X number of races almost categorically.

It might turn out that Merc's engine efficiency means they have to run significantly lower power to finish races with 100kg's of fuel while Renault have hugely better efficiency and will be able to run over a race distance with better overall power.

As I said above, it LOOKS like RBR are going to have trouble and be way behind, but we don't know where that baseline for the car is. They might end up months from getting the absolute best out of their car, but the best will blow Merc/Mclaren away by a mile, or they might suddenly get lucky get the very best out of the car by melbourne but the best their design can produce(be it aero or engine) is miles behind what Merc/Mclaren can do.

My general guess is, if they can improve cooling and maybe Renault can do some interesting stuff to the engine then maybe they can get a good amount of running done at the next test. However this will mostly mean that Merc/Mclaren who have already started to shift the focus towards aero/setup to find qualifying speed, most Renault cars are going to be focusing on getting the car working for a race rather than how well it can do in qualifying.

If they can sort out reliability quickly then I can see qualifying in the first few races being a huge problem, but the races may not be. We have no idea how the engines will stack up in terms of efficiency, ability to run over race distance, tyre wear, over taking. The Red Bull might struggle to make the top 10 in qualifying, but might have very good race pace for all we know.