This will be a big relief for McLaren: they've finally got some running in and will hope to build on that tomorrow. But it's another towering day from Mercedes: topping the lap count for the third day running is an impressive achievement and an ominous omen for the other teams.
F1 Testing 2015: Week 1 Jerez
- Thread starter Shimmy
- Start date
Day 3 pics - http://imgur.com/a/4cHW7
Caporegime
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They had but don't let that stop you nor obviously read any of my posts and ignore most of the points, but whatever.
Firstly, Mclaren Honda tried to test on a media test day where they were allowed up to 100km(which would be about 22-23 laps at Jerez for comparison), they did poorly, then they had an official 2 day test, they did poorly, they then have this test, and they had two terrible days.
By day 5 they had completed something like 17 laps and had literally months between these tests to improve. Red Bull did 20 laps in the first test which was 4 days BUT the bit you(and many others) ignore is that in that first test RBR did 20 laps but Renault engined cars did 150 laps.
My point as I've always been saying for the past 6 months is not that doing poorly early on is a terrible thing, I expected it, I was the one on here saying that is fine and who cares. It's the lack of other cars running that will hurt them especially badly.You can't compare RBR and Mclaren directly while ignoring the monumental difference in testing ability Renault had vs Honda, it's a completely different situation.
One of the reasons RBR did so well through the year was simple having aero in the same ballpark as Merc, no one else was remotely close in aero. Last year Ferrari, Mclaren, Sauber, FI, Marussia, Lotus and Caterham were all ****, that is the reason the Renault engine wasn't as big a handicap(against all but Merc) last year, not because RBR recovered. They had a significantly better overall car, worse engine but leagues ahead in aero, packaging, brakes(does no one remember how many times Riccy slowed far later yet maintained speed and stayed on track in corners, passing plenty of people, high downforce with reliable brakes better than most of the grid helped him throughout the season), than everyone but Merc. Another reason they did so well in recovery because there were 4 teams running that engine of which two provided a huge huge amount of test data... and Lotus taught every other Renault team what not to do... big bonus there as well
The very thing I've spent saying for 6 months is IF Mclaren/Honda have great testing OR terrible testing, it's the single car in testing that will kill them, they have no back up team testing, they have to find every single problem themselves and it will take longer to find and fix every problem.
EDIT:- lets also point out that is comparing against the worst engine last year, who Honda are trailing massively in laps to compared to same time last year. But lets just talk about the laps on day 2 of testing last year. Mclaren got 43, Ferrari 47, Williams 35, Merc 97, FI 37, Sauber 53, Caterham 11, RBR 8, TR didn't run.
So Merc got 212 laps on the second day, Ferrari notched up 100, Renault got 19 laps, just over triple Honda's output for the second day at Jerez(their 5th day of testing).
Third day last year Mclaren 92, Williams 47, Merc 62, FI 17, Ferrari 58, Sauber 34, Marussia 5, Caterham 10, TR 30, RBR 3. Honda/Mclaren are behind the three engines by a freaking enormous margin compared to the same day in testing last year, a monumentally large way behind. Mclaren as an individual car are less far behind, but not only against some teams. The problem is the teams that struggled had other teams helping make up the laps, that has been my point at every stage for the past 6 months.
Crap first test is pretty much inevitable, more teams, less risk, more teams, more running and a significantly higher chance of one team doing well, more teams, more bugs found, more fixes found. More teams, better development between tests, better idea of where to improve, what needs fixing, where the biggest problems are.
EDIT:- just one more thing, just to point it out, why compare Honda/Mclaren to last year, asides from the fact it highlights how much worse they are doing in comparison and ignores that they had a full season where the exact same team was using a competitors engine to learn every trick they could(something no one else has been able to do when making their own engines). They aren't racing last years cars this season, so it's irrelevant. How they do in this years championship is the only relevant thing. You could see them in Australia or Abu Dhabi, maybe they'll be 30 seconds behind the next slowest guy and a lap or two down on a Merc... are you going to say, but they were half a second faster than Merc finished this race last year?
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We get it. Honda are plonkers for not running their engines in another team. It's done, not much more to discuss on the matter until next season really is there?
However, early reports about their engine utilising the same split turbo design as the Merc and putting out some impressive power figures on the dyno is encouraging. I think in this respect Renault with their conventional turbo setup dictates they will have a much harder time to match Mercedes and Honda for performance due to the fact they would have to redesign substantial areas of the engine which they may or may not have been able to do over the winter.
Who knows really. All the teams and suppliers are naturally keeping their cards close to their chests at this point, of which the main technical details won't be disclosed until later on in the season when we can more closely compare the differences. Look at how long it was until Mercedes publicly released detailed photos of their homologated race engines.
It's also much easier to improve reliability through a season than it is performance. I know which one I'd rather start with.
However, early reports about their engine utilising the same split turbo design as the Merc and putting out some impressive power figures on the dyno is encouraging. I think in this respect Renault with their conventional turbo setup dictates they will have a much harder time to match Mercedes and Honda for performance due to the fact they would have to redesign substantial areas of the engine which they may or may not have been able to do over the winter.
Who knows really. All the teams and suppliers are naturally keeping their cards close to their chests at this point, of which the main technical details won't be disclosed until later on in the season when we can more closely compare the differences. Look at how long it was until Mercedes publicly released detailed photos of their homologated race engines.
It's also much easier to improve reliability through a season than it is performance. I know which one I'd rather start with.
Man of Honour
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Mercedes looking strong. Not that surprising though. Doesn't look so far like the others have closed the gap that existed at the end of the last season.
are these your pics?
http://www1.skysports.com/f1/news/2...ars-go-in-search-of-downforce-after-2014-woes - Mark Hughes explaining the differences between this and last years Ferrari and Mclaren. Both cars seem like they are going to be a lot more competitive this year 
Caporegime
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Again that isn't really my point, people keep making daft posts like Franks which simply ignored 90% of what I was saying and the entire main point and then trying to use 5% of what I was getting to tell me I was wrong about something I never actually claimed in the first place. I should be used to that with Frank, he does it to everyone. With him it's like posting 5+12+10 = 27, he'll reply back, but 5 + 10 = 12, so you're wrong about it being 27.
I've literally never said that Mclaren will fail or do poorly this year because they will have a low testing output in the first test. I think there is a very high chance they will under perform and run into problems all year because when low test output inevitably happens there aren't back up teams to help get more running done and really more importantly, run into more problems so they can be fixed concurrently.
I don't much care, though obviously have strong opinion about how I think Honda should have made their way back into the sport, with a better overall plan basically. I'm just saying why I think something is likely to happen.
Reliability fixes can come in the season, but if you find them mid race and end up out of the race... you're done. If you find a reliability issue in testing, work on a fix, integrate it and manage to work around the problem through the several races it will take to fix then you don't lose out. That is why testing is so important, to find and fix or find a work around to problems when it doesn't cost you points.
Someone on Pistonheads posted saying that Force India aren't at testing as they don't yet have a tub, due to not having paid suppliers. Could be down to 16 cars this year
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117583?_ga=1.49192230.1016917294.1421252827
So much for denying they have financial issues.
Permabanned
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Has Ted's note book day 3 been delayed?
It's normally up by 10pm
It's normally up by 10pm
was on at 9.30pm
Caporegime
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By the sounds of it no, the team is getting the 30mil 2014 constructors payment which means they just became far more viable to a buyer/investor type and it would seem they would only come out of administration both with some of the debts paid off significantly or basically in full but with certain creditors getting agreeing to a certain percentage like 50% of what they are owed or whatever.
I think it's more than possible, as with most administration situations it's mostly just a waiting game till the biggest amounts owed can be negotiated down till the numbers all add up.
Unfortunately that probably means that **** Chilton gets to come back to the sport despite being completely awful and utterly dominated by his team mate...
http://grandprixrankings.com/compare/2013-f1/bianchi-versus-chilton/
http://grandprixrankings.com/compare/2014-f1/chilton-versus-bianchi/
Both seasons only twice(without DNF's) did Chilton finish ahead of Bianchi and only 3 then 4 times did he out qualify Bianchi.
I think the saddest thing about that is.... I really hadn't remembered of thought about Bianchi in quite a while, took me a second to remember and realise he wouldn't be back as well if Marussia came back
Caporegime
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People consistently over state how mental issues off the track effect drivers and Hamilton. His "bad" season was really just a season in which Massa decided he didn't want to let anyone pass and unfortunately for Hamilton he was the one trying to pass him most often. He got smacked off what twice by Massa, by Maldonado, was that the year Webber smacked him off as well... then he didn't do as well in points.... apparently because he was reckless and hitting everyone but you can go back and see most of the collisions and they really had nothing to do with him.
He's driven identically in the past 2 season(was it 2012 or 2011 people consider his meltdown year, I'm bad with remembering dates in that context), just Massa stopped hitting everyone else, Maldonado lost a car capable of hitting anyone nearer the front (
). He's still the most aggressive over taker on the grid by a mile and rarely hits anyone while the other drivers involved that year(in most incidents) all continued to hit everything possible.I really don't think he had a bad year in himself, he just bore the brunt of other peoples crap driving, as I said, he really hasn't changed style in the slightest. it was just a bad luck year where the guys who hit everyone all seemed to choose him that year.