F1 Testing 2015: Week 1 Jerez

Bit of a shame the Mclaren can't get an afternoon running in as well, much improved but still not great and probably a bit early to be talking about the engine going to nearer full power. Probably won't see the Honda stretch it's legs a bit till the third test.

Good to see Lotus being less of a complete and utter shambles this season, outside of Mclaren they probably have the biggest learning curve required for testing with the engine change.

Sauber doing some good times on all tires although their fastest is on the soft tire they had a good medium tire lap as well. They were running way way way way further behind the Ferrari at previous tests so do get the feeling they've improved significantly on a woeful last year.

RBR, meh, the engine seems to be somewhat working fine on the Toro Rosso but they are again not getting in a large number of laps and again blowing an engine pretty early without many laps on it. More conservative car with same engine doing more laps shocker ;)
AS it stands though RBR on 12 laps, but thanks to TR Renault have 100 laps of data for the day. The advantage a conservative smaller budget team brings, let alone a third or fourth team, is pretty massive for testing.
 
Rosberg (Mercedes) 125
Sainz (Toro Rosso) 101
Nasr (Sauber) 83
Raikkonen (Ferrari) 65
Maldonado (Lotus) 63
Massa (Williams) 58
Alonso (McLaren) 32
Ricciardo (Red Bull) 18

Haven't changed that much that quickly just that those lap counts were a little old when you posted them.

Only Red Bull have done less than Mclaren and afaik he's still going around so may get ahead by the end of the day. Mclaren are about where they should be, a couple bad days, an not as bad day today, hopefully an okay 40-50laps tomorrow. Outside of Merc last year that is closer to what you'd expect to see from a new engine though you would still have hoped for a little more. I thought a 30 lap average in the first test would be about best case which would now require 70ish laps tomorrow, then hoping to get closer to 50-60laps average in the second and third test. Thing that is really hurting them is lack of another car running. Renault are going to get so much more useful data due to having a second car running. I mean still RBR have run less than Mclaren but Renault have done 4 times the number of laps today.
 
Another good day at the test - we cut it short once we learned that the McLaren wasn't coming back out. Goodness, it sounded much better today - still a little clunky on some of the shifts but so much improved. It has quite a distinctive note to it - a bit angrier than the Mercedes but not quite as rich a note.

There was some fun on the drying track, and a few drivers found it pretty challenging into the chicane at turn 10. Alonso kept the crowd amused with a few power slides down there before coming off the intermediates.

The Mercedes still looks to be driving well within itself, but once again the Sauber looked pretty decent. It was another dull, overcast day - a bit warmer than yesterday but there was a really stiff breeze too which must've made things a little more tricky for the drivers.

We're flying back tomorrow afternoon, so that's testing finished for me. Time to negotiate with the other half to catch the last test in Barcelona... :)

A few more photos from today - full set here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gregkingston/sets/72157648292254924/

I thought I'd try and look inside the cockpits onto the steering wheels today. Quite a lot of variety.

Pastor Maldonado by Greg Kingston, on Flickr

Nico Rosberg about to overtake Pastor Maldonado by Greg Kingston, on Flickr

Felipe Nasr by Greg Kingston, on Flickr

Pastor Maldonado by Greg Kingston, on Flickr

Kimi Raikkonen by Greg Kingston, on Flickr

Nico Rosberg by Greg Kingston, on Flickr

Carlos Sainz Jr by Greg Kingston, on Flickr
 
Wow, great pictures. I know you said you were going for steering wheel but you went and incidentally took some of the best pictures I've seen showing the side pods and how the body work cuts back in on various cars. Best comparison shots I've seen by a mile as from that angle the different curves are so much more visible. So many, if not most shots focusing on the side pods are from the front and it makes a lot of that curved detail difficult to see in the same way.

I read somewhere, forget where, that attendance went down massively for day two without Alonso there and I presume back up today. They said 20k on Sunday but only a few thousand yesterday(but not very accurate). I wondered how much of that is down to simply people working on monday vs sunday but if today was also very busy it means it's all down to Alonso.
 
drunkenmaster said:
Wow, great pictures. I know you said you were going for steering wheel but you went and incidentally took some of the best pictures I've seen showing the side pods and how the body work cuts back in on various cars. Best comparison shots I've seen by a mile as from that angle the different curves are so much more visible. So many, if not most shots focusing on the side pods are from the front and it makes a lot of that curved detail difficult to see in the same way.
Click to expand...

Thanks! I didn't think about the side pods but I see what you mean.

drunkenmaster said:
I read somewhere, forget where, that attendance went down massively for day two without Alonso there and I presume back up today. They said 20k on Sunday but only a few thousand yesterday(but not very accurate). I wondered how much of that is down to simply people working on monday vs sunday but if today was also very busy it means it's all down to Alonso.
Click to expand...

I'd say that 20,000 was conservative - it was much busier than that - so busy that they opened the entire circuit. It was busier again today with Alonso on the track but nowhere near Sunday numbers. There were lots of students and school kids in today. Yesterday was pretty dead - great for moving around the circuit quickly and no queues for food and beer :)

It was the same last year too. The days when Alonso drove the crowds came. He's applauded every lap and they really do worship him.
 
Current laps are
Merc 151
TR 136
Sauber 108
Lotus 96
Ferrari 92
Williams 71
RBR 48
Mclaren 32


Merc 318
Ferrari 200
Renault 184
Honda 32

Total across 3 days
Merc 741
Ferrari 500
Renault 356
Honda 44

Lotus getting a lot of joy and as if by magic, Maldonado didn't hit anything :o

TR looking pretty solid putting out decent laps every day. RBR didn't do so bad considering the day included an engine change. Sauber, good number of laps, showing some pace. Again we don't really know what these engines can do flat out here but I'm more comparing Sauber to Ferrari. The Ferrari is faster as it was using slower tires but that sauber are in the same ballpark just feels extremely encouraging compared to where they were last year.

Last year was a disaster for Lotus and Sauber performance/results wise so I'd really like to see them doing well this season and both are starting off looking in far far better shape than they did last season. Could be an odd season if Lotus and Sauber are close to the main group. We might not really have a backmarker this year, no team way out the back getting lapped most races. Could be a pretty tight competitive bunch(well okay, a ways back from Merc). Has that ever really happened before?

Honda obviously got a lot more laps in and actual laps, back to back, probably some of their first really useful data. Rather than just tracking down a problem they could actually see some real feedback. While 32 laps looks great compared to 6, and it is without question great compared to it, as you can generally see across the teams, increasing output is expected so 32 is still some way behind everyone on the third day. Hopefully they get a big day tomorrow.
 
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Is there any news on what happened to the lotus? It stopped so close to the end of the session that it might have been a fuel run out test, but I haven't heard from anywhere what it actually was yet.
 
The_Abyss said:
Another good day at the test - we cut it short once we learned that the McLaren wasn't coming back out. Goodness, it sounded much better today - still a little clunky on some of the shifts but so much improved. It has quite a distinctive note to it - a bit angrier than the Mercedes but not quite as rich a note.

There was some fun on the drying track, and a few drivers found it pretty challenging into the chicane at turn 10. Alonso kept the crowd amused with a few power slides down there before coming off the intermediates.

The Mercedes still looks to be driving well within itself, but once again the Sauber looked pretty decent. It was another dull, overcast day - a bit warmer than yesterday but there was a really stiff breeze too which must've made things a little more tricky for the drivers.

We're flying back tomorrow afternoon, so that's testing finished for me. Time to negotiate with the other half to catch the last test in Barcelona... :)

A few more photos from today - full set here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/gregkingston/sets/72157648292254924/

I thought I'd try and look inside the cockpits onto the steering wheels today. Quite a lot of variety.

..pictures..
Click to expand...

Very nice shots. :)
 
drunkenmaster said:
Honda obviously got a lot more laps in and actual laps, back to back, probably some of their first really useful data. Rather than just tracking down a problem they could actually see some real feedback. While 32 laps looks great compared to 6, and it is without question great compared to it, as you can generally see across the teams, increasing output is expected so 32 is still some way behind everyone on the third day. Hopefully they get a big day tomorrow.
Click to expand...

How about comparing Honda's output compared to everyone's last year as thats the only true comparison to make

Put it another way - I doubt RBR had made 32 laps by this point last year and yet they won.....3 races over the next season (and performed well in a good number of others).
 
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