F1 Testing 2014: Week 3 Bahrain

I have no desire to see Red Bull do badly. What I do like is the potential level of unpredictability that unreliability and rule changes bring. Hope RBR get their house at least some way in order by the first race.
 
Lopéz said:
I have no desire to see Red Bull do badly. What I do like is the potential level of unpredictability that unreliability and rule changes bring. Hope RBR get their house at least some way in order by the first race.
Click to expand...
 
Lopéz said:
I have no desire to see Red Bull do badly. What I do like is the potential level of unpredictability that unreliability and rule changes bring. Hope RBR get their house at least some way in order by the first race.
Click to expand...

I don't! Will be glad to see how good Vettel really is. I want them to be reliable yes, just not have the fastest car!
 
I feel Red Bull's arrogance has caught up with them.

IMHO they've tried to bring updates to the car to help with some of the issues, but as we've seen today they're actually going backwards.

This season looks to be the most unpredictable yet:
- Unknown PU reliability and power
- 4x the amount of torque plus lower downforce requires greater driver skill - whose talent will shine?
- Williams and Force India looking quick and reliable with some good driving talent - can they win some races? No one here would want to deny Hulkenberg or Massa a win.
- Kimi v Alonso - who do you put your money on?
- Can anyone tell how good or bad Ferrari are looking?
- Mercedes looking good, but will their drivers respond? Can Hamilton grow up a bit and drive with a bit more maturity? (He's 29 now)

I can't wait for this season to get underway :)
 
Last edited:
I can't believe RB only managed four corners today. four!

They'd be better off going to the local scrapyard and getting an old Fiesta engine installed. At least they'd get some aero data. :)
 
I do find it strange, why RBR don't come into the testing day, with a "cool" package, where aero is compromised, inorder to enable super cooling of the power train. They can then work their way forwards, by reducing the cooling vents, step by step.

At least this way, come the season opener, they will at least have a car which has a good chance of completing the full race distance.

I can't help feel that they are taking an all or nothing approach, which means they could arrive in Australia with a package which is the fastest over a single lap, but then breaks down after 10 laps. They are taking a huge gamble.

My understanding is that tomorrow is the last day of testing and they are still persisting with a package which prioritises aerodynamics over cooling.

At this point, they don't even have a car which can complete a full race.

It'll be interesting to see if RBR decide to run their most reliable set-up tomorrow...or not.
 
sunama said:
I can't help feel that they are taking an all or nothing approach, which means they could arrive in Australia with a package which is the fastest over a single lap, but then breaks down after 10 laps. They are taking a huge gamble.
Click to expand...

I'll be astonished if they can even manage fastest over a single lap. With their severely limited testing programme they just won't have the understanding of the car setup they need to get the most out of it.
 
Lopéz said:
I have no desire to see Red Bull do badly.
Click to expand...

I do.

What I do like is the potential level of unpredictability that unreliability and rule changes bring. Hope RBR get their house at least some way in order by the first race.
Click to expand...

There's no enjoyment in watching a car unable to compete in the race. I hope Red Bull can deliver a package that's capable of competing at least. The Vettel/Newey domination has been dull to watch but it won't be any more interesting to see Mercedes (say) drive off into the distance.
 
So with people saying they don't want some teams dominating, or others being way back off the pace, what are people's views on a single standardized engine?
 
Skeeter said:
So with people saying they don't want some teams dominating, or others being way back off the pace, what are people's views on a single standardized engine?
Click to expand...

F1 should be a technology based sport. I'd rather see a single standard body and aero package and the ability to develop the mechanics freely.

Also, while I don't enjoy seeing Vettel and RBR dominate I'm not a fan of jigging with the sport simply to try and stop it.
 
Mr Jack said:
F1 should be a technology based sport. I'd rather see a single standard body and aero package and the ability to develop the mechanics freely.

Also, while I don't enjoy seeing Vettel and RBR dominate I'm not a fan of jigging with the sport simply to try and stop it.
Click to expand...

Even if engine development produces a situation like this where some teams may be unable to compete, and others may drive off into the distance?

I'm not saying any opinion is right or wrong, I'm just interested to see peoples views. There seems to be a big contradiction in opinions in that the consensus is a desire for a level playing field so the best driver wins, but also a fully open competitive technology formula which will by definition produce a wide spread of performance.

Its all a bit of a "you can't have your cake and eat it" situation. The best way to see the best driver win is to give them all a Mercedes engine and a standard chassis. And likewise if you want to see a competitive technology formula then you can't complain if 1 team out performs others.
 
sunama said:
I do find it strange, why RBR don't come into the testing day, with a "cool" package, where aero is compromised, inorder to enable super cooling of the power train. They can then work their way forwards, by reducing the cooling vents, step by step.
Click to expand...

I think you've got a rather simplified view of modern F1. Red Bull showed today, as clear as day is, that it's not simply cooling. On their second 'run' they got to the end of the pit lane. On their longest run, they made it to turn four... I don't care how you want to paint it, that's not a cooling issue. Sticking random holes in the body isn't going to fix an issue striking you after half a lap.

I said earlier in the day that they're encountering the sort of issues that other teams already faced after a few hundred miles, and I stand by that.
 
Are the a ancillary bits of the Power Unit like the motors and the control unit standard across all the Renault teams, or are RBR using their own design as they did with the KERS?
 
sunama said:
I do find it strange, why RBR don't come into the testing day, with a "cool" package, where aero is compromised, inorder to enable super cooling of the power train. They can then work their way forwards, by reducing the cooling vents, step by step.

At least this way, come the season opener, they will at least have a car which has a good chance of completing the full race distance.

I can't help feel that they are taking an all or nothing approach, which means they could arrive in Australia with a package which is the fastest over a single lap, but then breaks down after 10 laps. They are taking a huge gamble.

My understanding is that tomorrow is the last day of testing and they are still persisting with a package which prioritises aerodynamics over cooling.

At this point, they don't even have a car which can complete a full race.

It'll be interesting to see if RBR decide to run their most reliable set-up tomorrow...or not.
Click to expand...

This is basically my thinking, I really do think RBR kind of did a risk everything thing with Riccy's qualifying run. I think they went flat out with the engine to see what it could do, what were the consequences for the car. IE if they do 3 laps with the engine at full, or likely even a warm up/cruise in lap at less than full power and turn it up for one lap and see if the car explodes.

It could be the reason the car was done today, maybe they did their first full engine run and the result of that was excessive heat and damage to loads of bits and as a result was completely unable to run today. People are saying not leaving the pitlane means it wasn't down to cooling. but look at Merc today, the engine has been run for 6 days. While the cars will be being taken to pieces and new bits added, you can't always know a part has failed till you try to run it. The heat from the running yesterday could absolutely be the reason the car then couldn't make it down the pitlane today.

Ferrari have increased their cooling, Merc showed up AFAIK at the first day of Bahrain with an increased cooling package. everyone seems to have realised, except RBR, that you're going to have to compromise aero for cooling. Which isn't that surprising as I think they've been doing that for 4 years, so i'm not surprised they've gone that route again but I think they've underestimated how often things are going to fail with the engine that hot. Thing is the engine being hot is one thing, but it means everything else around it is hotter so higher chance for other failures, electronics and everything else to go

The change in engines, increased temps and massively increased complexity it seems borderline ridiculous that RBR wouldn't change their "zero compromises on aero" stance, when seemingly every other team has realised something had to give.
 
1 Alonso Ferrari 1m35.509s
2 Bottas Williams 1m35.563s +0.054
3 Vergne Toro Rosso 1m36.320s +0.811
4 Sutil Sauber 1m36.467s +0.958
5 Hulkenberg Force India 1m36.637s +1.128
6 Button McLaren 1m38.111s +2.602
7 Kobayashi Caterham 1m38.653s +3.144
8 Vettel Red Bull 1m39.708s +4.199
9 Chilton Marussia 1m41.242s +5.733
10 Grosjean Lotus 1m43.459s +7.950


Merc changing a gearbox

1 Bottas Williams 1m35.153s
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom