F1 Testing 2014: Week 3 Bahrain

"Ricciardo takes the RB10 into the 1m36s for the first time in six days of running here in Bahrain"

Not so bad after all.
 
It does seem impressive, but of course we don't know what tyres or fuel loads they're running. All the times mean nothing without reliability of course.
 
From Autosport

"McLaren has got the MP4-29 re-fettled after the loss of drive that curtailed Button's running earlier. He's ventured back out with just over an hour to go."
 
Considering everyone has to have at least some minor idea how fast their car can be in low fuel loads and those are 3 lap runs RbR are doing, I'd say they are fairly close to qualifying simulations... which suggests their times are a little crap.

I really can't figure out how they didn't plan from Jerez to make basically a version of the car with far better cooling, huge exit, bigger side pods and get the car running. Surely much easier to get a working car and work backwards towards the limit of cooling than work from well beyond the limit and increase cooling one bodge job at a time and miss out on hundreds of laps of testing while still ending up with a car that hasn't come remotely close to a race distance run.

Merc and plenty of other cars seem to have an increased cooling version of their car, because with far hotter engines, heat problems with batteries it's pretty insane not to factor that in. Better to be able to finish the hotter races slightly slower than speed around for 15 laps before retiring.

I get the feeling that if RBR are doing relatively close to qualifying simulation and trying to get an idea of just how fast they can go with the engine not maxed out without the car burning up, they are seconds off the pace. A 1:36 is rubbish compared to a 1:32, even if they had 10 laps of fuel on board and only did 3, that is miles off the pace.
 
Haven't been this excited about the first race in years.
Technologically advanced cars. Ok its no Williams fw15/16? what ever it was called the one built for 1994 but never raced due to ban of all the electronics,
Cars all look different, back to the good old days.
Reliability issues back in play.
Even less of a clue than usual how the grid is going to be.
Lewis and Button looking to have decent cars.
Excited to see how Magnusson does.
 
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I hadn't specifically thought of that but, very much so. I've said before that I've always thought the now previous years cars were extremely close to the limit of what they can deal with heat wise. Webber for a top car had more things like Kers fail than most. The few times Vettel's car ended up trailing people his failure rate increased significantly. You can just about get away with being closer to the heat limit I guess if you can be almost certain to be leading most races. This year with hotter temps, more batteries and kers/ers being critical rather than tacked on, that they've failed to consider cooling to this point seems insane.

That I think Merc and Mclaren realise their cars might need an alternative extra cooled car for the hotter races this year, while RBR whose "normal" car seems to be (in previous years also) so much closer to the edge, this year completely past that limit, haven't considered a second better cooled slightly slower version seems nothing short of ridiculous to me.

I mean it currently looks like with anything they've run in any of the three tests that RBR don't have a hope in hell of running full power for full race distance at Melbourne...

One team praying for rain most likely :p
 
So Caterham finish early due to a small fire, and Lotus stopped due to "Char grilling" (source: Lotus tweet).

Not looking good, especially as we all thought the minor Renault teams were in a better place.
 
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robbiemc said:
So Caterham finish early due to a small fire, and Lotus stopped due to "Char grilling" (source: Lotus tweet).

Not looking good, especially as we all thought the minor Renault teams had were in a better place.
Click to expand...

Shockingly they probably still are! :o:p


Glaucus said:
Haven't been this excited about the first race in years.
Technologically advanced cars. Ok its no Williams fw15/16? what ever it was called the one built for 1994 but never raced due to ban of all the electronics,
Cars all look different, back to the good old days.
Reliability issues back in play.
Even less of a clue than usual how the grid is going to be.
Lewis and Button looking to have decent cars.
Excited to see how Magnusson does.
Click to expand...

Yep, can't wait for the first race... Not long now either :D
 
I think the Red Bull is quick, that's not it's problem though - the problem is that it's not reliable, and to be quick you need to turn everything up, the revs, power train, engine et al all need to be pushed to the limit, and that's where they have a problem because all those things get too hot even when the car ISN'T at the limit.

Aerodynamically RB have always done well and they have the "God of Aero" still at the helm so they're bound to be decent when the issues with the car are sorted out... but there is an element of engine power that will be more important than ever this year and I have a feeling that the Mercedes, as well as being more reliable has more performance too.

Unfortunately for RB, and fortunately for a lot of us (:D) they are running out of time to find a solution, or compromise if you will, where they can extract maximum performance and maximum reliability at the same time.

Factor in that after Sunday (I think it's Sunday or very shortly after) Renault and Red Bull will not be able to enhance the performance of the Engine until 2015, so a whole season of running on what they managed to achive from testing.

The problem is they're so incredibly on the backfoot now with reliability and making sure the car gets to the chequered flag that they aren't going to be able to master both reliability and performance... where as Mclaren, Mercedes, Ferrari and the other Merc powered FI and Williams etc. have got a monumental amount of data to trawl through and numbers to crunch, so much so that they will be doing Qualifying sims on the last two days and eeking out every last drop of performance from the power units and engines.

If they manage to iron the cooling problems out I think it will be a quick car, whether it will be as quick as the Mercedes or Mclaren will be another story but one thing's for sure right now... Red Bull R B 10.
 
smr said:
Factor in that after Sunday (I think it's Sunday or very shortly after) Renault and Red Bull will not be able to enhance the performance of the Engine until 2015, so a whole season of running on what they managed to achive from testing.
.
Click to expand...

It was meant to be today, not Sunday (BBC mentioned it earlier in testing I think), but either way they will be allowed to make changes after that and performance will be increased

Whether Ferrari get the claimed 75bhp "back" that Merc are supposed to have over them is another matter though.

Coincidence that Rosberg and Hamilton's gearboxes failed after 89 laps on consecutive days...is this Merc's weak point?


Glad to see JB got out for the last hour, but still a pity a lot of the day was lost to what must have been a pretty serious gremlin (hopefully tomorrow is problem free)
 
Yep, and all through this Perez has been pounding around the track and completed 100 laps each day, and finished top of the board for timing.
Very impressive for Force India. Decent reliability, fast car and two exciting drivers - bodes well.
 
Well from the interviews with Remi Taffin the Renault powered teams can turn the engine up to full revs.

He did say that the they still have some problems though and that they will still be there after Australian GP.
 
OMG, Lewis is rubbish. Mercedes are in so much trouble. Their car broke and was slower than a Marussia. They're not even going to make the 107% time in Melbourne.

Am I doing this testing analysis thing right? ;)
 
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