F1 Testing 2014: Week 3 Bahrain

Shimmy · 26 Feb 2014 at 10:13

Thursday 27th February - Sunday 2nd March

Live Timing Links:
http://live.autosport.com/commentary.php/id/704
http://www.f1today.net/en/live/2014/03/02/sakhir
http://grandprix247.com/live-timing-2/

Running order:

Day 1 Times:

Day 2 Times:

Day 3 Times:

Day 4 Times:

Lap record: Pedro de la Rosa - 1:31.447 (McLaren; 2005)

2013 pole: Nico Rosberg - 1:32.330 (Mercedes)

2014 Bahrain Test 1 Fastest lap: Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:33.283, New Soft tyres, Day Four

Weather forecast, predictably sunny:

Total laps by each team after 2 tests.
Mercedes - 624
McLaren - 541
Ferrari - 538
Williams - 498
Sauber - 403
Force India - 359
Caterham - 329
Toro Rosso - 193
Red Bull - 137
Lotus - 111
Marussia - 59

Total laps by each engine manufacturer after 2 tests.
Mercedes - 2002
Ferrari - 1000
Renault - 770

Approximate kilometres by each team after 2 tests.
Mercedes - 2935 km
McLaren - 2564 km
Ferrari - 2544 km
Williams - 2403 km
Sauber - 1926 km
Force India - 1715 km
Caterham - 1621 km
Toro Rosso - 943km
Red Bull - 684 km
Lotus - 568 km
Marussia - 277 km

Approximate kilometres by each engine manufacturer after 2 tests.
Mercedes - 9618 km
Ferrari - 4747 km
Renault - 3816 km

Shimmy · 26 Feb 2014 at 12:18

4 days, starting tomorrow.
I'll add it to the OP.

Shimmy · 26 Feb 2014 at 20:14

leaskovski said:
Are Williams going to unveil their new sponsor tomorrow, or is that in Aus?

Do you mean livery? They've already announced sponsors.

Shimmy · 27 Feb 2014 at 10:55

FrankJH said:
True pace or FI wanting media attention?

Well it was on super softs and 2 seconds off Rosberg's time last week, so it's not exactly going to be grabbing anyone's attention.

Other than out right lap times similar to Rosberg's last week I would look at long run consistency. Either way, Mercedes are looking very handy.

Still yet to see proper race sims from the other teams.

Shimmy · 27 Feb 2014 at 14:39

That's Day One over of the last test.

Looks like Williams are winning the reliability accolade.

Shimmy · 27 Feb 2014 at 19:35

Duke said:
Thats some good laps today from Mclaren, Force India and Williams.

nom nom nom data

Certainly a good day for Force India, they have been a bit behind the other Mercedes powered teams in terms of mileage.

Shimmy · 28 Feb 2014 at 08:10

New cooling holes for the Red Bull, not the most graceful solution I've seen.

Shimmy · 28 Feb 2014 at 08:22

PU homologation comes into effect at the end of today. Renault are said to have approached the FIA for this deadline to be moved back, by as much as 2-3 months.

Shimmy · 28 Feb 2014 at 08:26

If Renault really think they are that far behind, then the first few fly away races are certainly going to bad news for Renault powered teams. Certainly can't delay the start of the season!

Shimmy · 28 Feb 2014 at 11:07

Naughty

Shimmy · 28 Feb 2014 at 15:05

Times at the end of Day 2.

Shimmy · 2 Mar 2014 at 16:53

Approximate distance covered by the teams during testing.

Top ten fastest times during testing in Bahrain.

Shimmy · 2 Mar 2014 at 19:30

Video of Vettel's brake failure:

Shimmy · 3 Mar 2014 at 10:19

Mercedes pace looks very ominous.

Hamilton's quick lap yesterday was set on used softs whereas Massa's was set on new super softs.

Shimmy · 4 Mar 2014 at 14:06

Pretty damning and critical view of Renault here, very good read.

http://thejudge13.com/2014/03/04/hippos-view-from-the-water-hole-why-renault-deserves-no-mercy/

Shimmy · 4 Mar 2014 at 16:45

Mr Jack said:
What a load of rubbish. He shows a total ignorance of how things are developed and why they go the way they do.

FrankJH said:
OUCH!!! comes to mind.

The writer is a little egotistical if you ask me

Definitely egotistical and is too heavy handed in his criticism.

But he's not unfounded in his claims. The Head of Renault PU development at the tests admitted that they were behind schedule and is mainly due to software gremlins. Saying things like 'limp home' mode and 'fail safe' programs either didn't exist yet or were very immature in their development, even for relatively minor issues these then become major problems for the teams.

Shimmy · 4 Mar 2014 at 19:14

More noise proclaiming that Mercedes' advantage could be massive.

http://willthef1journo.wordpress.com/2014/03/04/so-what-do-we-know/

Whilst I like the Mercedes outfit and its two drivers, I wouldn't want any team to totally dominate throughout.

Shimmy · 4 Mar 2014 at 19:15

Glaucus said:
No way you can blame this all on Renault, newly designed a car without the needed cooling. Even if the Renault engine worked well, it would almost certainly overheat. Just look at rbr side pods and ducts compared to any other car this season. Both Renault and rbr have stuffed up.
Yes the car will almost certainly be fast, but Mercedes would be even faster if they made their side pods smaller and overheated after a few laps.

Renault balled up on engine and rbr underestimated heat of the new PU.

And agreed, there is nothing called luck. Its being good at your job or bad. This year both Renault and RBR have made bad choices. The question is how bad is this going to be. I don't think its going to be the catastrophe most people think.

Oh definitely not, Helmut Marko has been quoted as saying that RBR are 2 months behind.

Shimmy · 5 Mar 2014 at 13:47

JeditOjanen said:
On which note, have we got a ~~masochistic lunatic~~ replacement for you lined up yet?

Is Duke no longer doing them?

Mike306 said:
Shimmy

If people just want threads creating for each race weekend with relevant background information, I'm happy to do it. I actually relatively enjoy that sort of stuff, which is why I'm more active during testing/pre-season.

I'm just not interested in the bickering once racing begins.

Shimmy · 5 Mar 2014 at 19:11

Duke said:
It got boring giving those that moaned/trolled a platform each race weekend but after a few years it was time to let someone else do it. Looks like you just volunteered yourself

Glaucus said:
To true, it got hard just reading them, for one decent post out of 15.
Ignore list came in useful for the usual suspects.

F1 is usually dominated by 1 team, that's f1 for you. It doesn't make it rubbish, but perhaps those people should move to a same spec series.

Duke said:
I'm quite interested in the tech side so tend to browse F1Technical forums.

Ditto all of the above. I stopped actually reading the posts within a race thread years ago haha.

Much more interested on the tech side of things and developing stories in the sport. Pretty much why I started the off topic thread and have done testing threads for a couple years.

I'll do the race weekend threads no problem, just don't plan on reading much of it beyond a Saturday.