F1 Testing 2016: Week 1 Barcelona (22nd - 25th)

Skeeter said:
The way Ted described the Honda testing strategy is rather worrying.

They are running a bunch of development parts here. And then they will run a new bunch of development parts at the 2nd test. And then they will just "see what works" and throw the best bits together for Melbourne.

So not only do they not really seem to have any clue as to what bits work and what bits don't, but they could also turn up to Melbourne with an engine (which will be used for 1/5 of the season, hopefully) that is in a mix and match specification of parts thats never been tested.

It all sounds very similar to how they went through the entire 2015 campaign, throwing parts at the engine praying that something worked.

:/
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Ferrari are doing the same - http://beta.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/122931/ferrari-to-evolve-engine-for-australia
 
Ferrari finished most races last year, even winning a few, and didn't use 12 engines per car ;):p

Mixing and matching development parts on a platform of a pretty reliable and pretty quick engine is very different from doing it on an unknown platform of questionable everything. Would Honda even have a stable benchmark to use to assess if things are making improvements or not?
 
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Skeeter said:
Ferrari finished most races last year, even winning a few, and didn't use 12 engines per car ;):p

Mixing and matching development parts on a platform of a pretty reliable and pretty quick engine is very different from doing it on an unknown platform of questionable everything. Would Honda even have a stable benchmark to use to assess if things are making improvements or not?
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They also didn't say anything about mixing and matching. I'm fairly sure I read they were planning on bringing engine updates to the second test, not that they would bring them then mix and match and bring a completely untested final version to Australia.... these are very different things.

Also as you say, Ferrari have a completely proven track record of bringing reliable parts off their dynos and onto the track.. Mclaren do not.
 
Shimmy said:
Day 2 mega album:
http://imgur.com/a/5FGyE

Liking the RB12 livery more and more, looking very tight.
f1-bar11.jpg
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Personally not a fan of it, I like the car, I like the matt coating I've just always always hated the giant red bull on it... which I know they are unlikely to get rid of. It looks messy and wrong to me. A smaller redbull elsewhere that wasn't so garish would be way better, however from that album....


That looks awesome from that angle and with that lighting, the ultra plain livery, I kinda like it.

estugkX.jpg
 
deuse said:
So Merc has done enough testing they have decided to give each driver half a day each for the next 2 days.
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They did it because they want to do even more testing. They want to do so many laps in one day that they think it's physically too demanding for a single driver. Targeting 180 laps today, so 90 a piece. Pretty much most of the time they came in for fuel/tires the reason they stayed in longer was to give drivers a break.

I think it was last year Nico had trouble with his neck after doing so many laps. So rather than 180 laps, a bad neck and trouble for a month with your neck, 90laps each over a few hours then rest.
 
drunkenmaster said:
They did it because they want to do even more testing. They want to do so many laps in one day that they think it's physically too demanding for a single driver. Targeting 180 laps today, so 90 a piece. Pretty much most of the time they came in for fuel/tires the reason they stayed in longer was to give drivers a break.

I think it was last year Nico had trouble with his neck after doing so many laps. So rather than 180 laps, a bad neck and trouble for a month with your neck, 90laps each over a few hours then rest.
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Sky reported it's because they will be doing new things with the car on the fourth day so each driver will get to test the changes.
 
The_Abyss said:
I'm not surprised that Arai has gone. I appreciate that this isn't the final race engine and these are early days of testing, but the McLaren is already 10 mph slower than Mercedes-powered cars on the straight. At least it appears to be more reliable so far this season...
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Arai's departure has nothing to do with the engine. Honda have a mandatory retirement age of 60.
 
.Lethal said:
Sky reported it's because they will be doing new things with the car on the fourth day so each driver will get to test the changes.
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http://beta.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/122942/mercedes-alters-plans-due-to-mileage


Mercedes have basically explained it thoroughly, Hamilton saying he's sore after all those laps, Nico had a problem with his neck last year after so many laps.

Sky are just god awful, they take actual fact and then post something contrary.

There is a post of the full quotes Boullier made in regards to the first day running on reddit yet Brooks(or whatever her name is) tweeted and I think did a story on one very small part of the quote completely and utterly out of context. he basically said it was a good day but with 63 laps for Merc their 30 wasn't good enough... but they were basically happy with the car and engine was better.

Brooks tweeted and ran the story as "Boullier says Mclaren not good enough" with zero context.

Sky are awful, truly awful now, Ted has become a drama queen and a complete idiot. He thinks asking a new guy without perfect english embarrassing questions is a better use of time than talking about the cars now, that and screaming about everything being too complicated.

sky weren't bad a few years ago but this new, anti everything F1, pro anything drama and constantly misquoting everything on purpose has become farcical. Not having a go at you, just want to point out that literally nothing they say is accurate or believable. They are now purposefully misquoting people out of context to push their own agenda.
 
More and more stories and quotes coming from Arai and the new guy that the new Mclaren engine while an improvement isn't close to good enough. It's being suggested that it is a smaller leap than Ferrari from 2014-2015... which is not a good sign.

Things I'm picking up, mgu-h harvesting is improved but not nearly good enough, ice isn't there and reliability isn't there.

Apparently they had a known(or they thought it would be a problem) reliability issue with the car with a fix being worked on for the second test, it turned out to be a problem. They are apparently running 2015 engine mappings to avoid the problem which suggests they are running without much harvesting (certainly sounds like they have the waste gate open a lot) as that is what they did in 2015.

New guy saying no major updates and not major performance increases before Australia. they certainly don't sound very enthusiastic about overall performance.

While Ferrari's 14 > 15 leap was huge and not matching it wouldn't necessarily be a disaster Mclaren were way less competitive last year than Ferrari in 2014 so they had further to come back from.

I think these quotes may be from the autosport article but I'm not sure.

Boullier:
"As far as I'm concerned, I'm in charge of the chassis part, and drivers - on this part we are trying to be on target," he said. "As far as the engine part is concerned, you need to ask Honda.

"We will win when we have the best drivers, the best chassis, the best team, the best car, and the best engine."


Button:
"[On] deployment we've made a good step forward, but with the power unit we've a lot of work still," he said. "They [Honda] have done a good job on reliability and pushing the deployment very hard over the winter, but I don't think any of us will be happy going to Melbourne with the power unit."


Arai:
"We did as much [as we could] quickly last year, but it was not enough," Arai says. "In Japanese corporate culture, you learn and you are groomed within the company, so they tend to move you around different departments without explanation. We don't really question it. That may be a big difference in culture [to Europe].

"The strengthening of Honda's F1 project in total is just more commitment from Honda. It's good timing. Hasegawa-san will take over my role and he will accelerate. I trust his acceleration. [He is] maybe more competitive and faster than me!"


Hasegawa:
"Arai-san has already made the decision for this year of update plans for the engine," explains Hasegawa. "At this moment I just have to follow his plan.

"Maybe sooner or later I can put some of my ideas, but at this moment I have to follow through on his plan, for the next couple of months."
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I can't remember what the rules are now for 2017 in engine terms, no tokens, change as much as you want but a fixed cost for customers so if you want to completely redo the engine every year you can, but it will cost a bomb and customers still pay what was it 12mil?

I think this is a Honda stuck with roughly what they had season, making the best of it and we'll see an entirely new engine concept next year.
 
JeditOjanen said:
Arai's departure has nothing to do with the engine. Honda have a mandatory retirement age of 60.
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If it was on par with others or ahead, you'd therefore expect him to actually work up until he was 60 then, handing over as he went, not leave early.

The engine is a dog and he's been politely removed, and rewarded for his past achievements by being spared the indignity of being booted out.
 
I think what's more interesting is the change in language. Towards the end of last season, when it was obvious even to a blind deaf man in a coma that the Honda engine was having a shocker, the talk was still all about project, being on a journey, together, etc.

We're 3 days into pre-season and things are already entirely more frosty. Not on the same level as Red Bull and Renault, but McLaren are being far more open in sharing their frustration, albeit relatively politely. And that's not personally aimed at Arai either, as it has continued after he's gone. The excuses are being positioned nice and early.
 
Sounds like McLaren aren't pleased with Honda at all. And it also sounds like Honda are exactly the same as they've always been. No one person in charge, always pushing major decisions further up the chain for fear of upsetting the bosses which means even the slightest, smallest decision that should really only take speaking to one person, giving them the facts and what they'd like to do can take days to be signed off.

Ross Brawn said Honda were like that when they had their own team with major decisions often taking a week or more and very little contact with anyone who could say 'yes, do it' without umming and ahhing and saying they need to seek authorisation. It's the Japanese way.
 
I know it's only day 3 of the first test - but then again there's only 5 more days of testing left :/ Reading people's body reactions at McLaren and just reading the vibes from interviews etc. tells me that the team are in for another rough ride this season.

I fear that the Haas and Manor may well be quicker as well with a Ferrari and Merc engine respectively.

McLaren could quite possibly finish the race at the very back in Melbourne, are there any bets running on that? Cos I'd probably have a flutter.
 
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