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

Mr Jack · 25 Feb 2016 at 22:44

Duke said:
F1 test wrap: Barcelona week one by the numbers - http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/f1-test-wrap-barcelona-week-one-by-the-numbers-675766/

Interesting post. It looks like only Ferrari, Force India and Red Bull made a serious attempt at some glory runs, and Force India will be very pleased to be so close to the top of the sheet.

McLaren's problems shine through once more after a promising first couple of days their reliability dried up and they'll be going into the next test with a serious deficit to make up.

Skeeter · 26 Feb 2016 at 07:06

Wow, that really hammers it home.

f1-barcelona-february-testing-2016-kilometers-per-power-unit-cumulative-infographic.jpg

Everything wrong with Hondas/McLarens approach summed up in one depressing graphic

Shimmy · 26 Feb 2016 at 08:14

Development corner.

El_Watcher · 26 Feb 2016 at 08:51

Skeeter said:
Everything wrong with Hondas/McLarens approach summed up in one depressing graphic

That is a very confusing graphic. It says km per power units. :confused:

So is each bar the average distance travelled for each power unit used of each type?
Or is it total distance travelled for each manufacturer?

If it is the former, then that is bad for Mclaren.
If it is the later, then it isn't actually that bad as they did just less than half of the Ferrari 2016 based cars.

MooMoo444 · 26 Feb 2016 at 09:04

El_Watcher said:
That is a very confusing graphic. It says km per power units.

So is each bar the average distance travelled for each power unit used of each type?
Or is it total distance travelled for each manufacturer?

If it is the former, then that is bad for Mclaren.
If it is the later, then it isn't actually that bad as they did just less than half of the Ferrari 2016 based cars.

It's per manufacturer otherwise listing the teams in the right makes no sense.

Duke · 26 Feb 2016 at 09:36

Just total per teams using whichever power unit. Lots of data for Merc.

Greboth · 26 Feb 2016 at 13:12

Shimmy said:
Development corner.

The best part of teds notebooks

thanks for posting. Interesting he said in an earlier episode (1 I think) that the Red Bull paint job wasn't a special coating but then said it was.

visibleman · 26 Feb 2016 at 13:14

Skeeter said:
Wow, that really hammers it home.

http://cdn-8.motorsport.com/images/...ers-per-power-unit-cumulative-infographic.jpg

Everything wrong with Hondas/McLarens approach summed up in one depressing graphic

As melodramatic as you are (Private Frazer springs to mind

), i'm assuming you mean by 'approach' that they should open up the Honda PU to other teams to gain mileage?

True, they're still at the bottom of the list (by 300KM/64 laps or so) even if you looked at averages (strangely the 2015 Ferrari PU is above the Merc PU on average distance and Renault PU above the 2016 Ferrari PU) but they've seemingly improved and it'll be interesting to see where they are come Melbourne.

By the way, for anyone that isn't all 'doom and gloom' over Honda/McLaren, the Honda PU thread over on F1Technical is a decent read especially with a few members having insight knowledge

smr · 26 Feb 2016 at 13:33

JB And FA still 40/1 33/1 for the WDC.. ! Are they havin' a laugh!

Skeeter · 26 Feb 2016 at 13:36

visibleman said:
As melodramatic as you are (Private Frazer springs to mind ), i'm assuming you mean by 'approach' that they should open up the Honda PU to other teams to gain mileage?

Yes, exactly this.

What the Honda needs is more mileage. Thats the only way they are going to have a hope of catching and keeping pace with the others. Locking themselves to 1 team is a bad move.

smr · 26 Feb 2016 at 13:39

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/mclaren-set-for-boost-from-filming-day-running-675824/

2 Filming days for Macca.

Duke · 26 Feb 2016 at 13:52

visibleman said:
By the way, for anyone that isn't all 'doom and gloom' over Honda/McLaren, the Honda PU thread over on F1Technical is a decent read especially with a few members having insight knowledge

There are some great threads on there and nice that subjects are segregated, so you can read and follow things in detail without moaners.

GravyMonster · 26 Feb 2016 at 13:54

Skeeter said:
Yes, exactly this.

What the Honda needs is more mileage. Thats the only way they are going to have a hope of catching and keeping pace with the others. Locking themselves to 1 team is a bad move.

That may have worked at the end of 2014, but who now would want to hobble themselves with a Honda engine? Unless they can offer it to a midfield, cash starved team like Sauber at a much reduced cost, then I don't see how any other team would be interested.

Skeeter · 26 Feb 2016 at 14:00

Spunkey said:
That may have worked at the end of 2014, but who now would want to hobble themselves with a Honda engine? Unless they can offer it to a midfield, cash starved team like Sauber at a much reduced cost, then I don't see how any other team would be interested.

Thats exactly who they should be giving it too. Offer a cut price deal to Manor or Sauber and they would snap it up.

Merlin5 · 26 Feb 2016 at 14:48

Seems like the WDC only just finished and here we are almost about to begin the new season.

smr · 26 Feb 2016 at 16:48

Duke said:
There are some great threads on there and nice that subjects are segregated, so you can read and follow things in detail without moaners.

Unlike the McLaren forum on autosport which has gone into utter meltdown the last two days lol.

CaptainRAVE · 26 Feb 2016 at 22:18

Watching Ted's notebook from last night. The attention to detail on that Merc is crazy...and that is just the stuff we can see! Brilliant segment from Ted. I love looking at all those details that you usually don't notice on track.

drunkenmaster · 26 Feb 2016 at 23:42

While Manor and Sauber could very likely have been persuaded to take a Honda engine and if they believed in their engine they should have done a deal with them, I don't think it would actually make a difference.

If Mclaren had 4 teams doing several thousand KM last year in testing... the engine was just bad, it wouldn't have been less bad by Australia and it wouldn't have been less bad by the end of the year frankly. More running helps to get the final few percent out of a good/great engine but no amount of testing can make a bad engine a good one.

I reckon we'll see a different layout for 2017 now, compressor outside the V, they'll hope they can get a Merc style engine working but will probably settle on Ferrari/renault layout.

What Ferrari did so well was swallow their pride early in 2014, realise the engine wasn't good enough and put in place a plan for a radical change of personnel who weren't cutting it, bringing in the key engine people they needed and started work on the 2015 engine basically as the 2014 season started. They could have been stubborn and spent 6-8 months trying to get a bad engine working but instead they went straight to work on a better engine.

Honda needed to do that in April last year, instead they figured out the engine sucked in what, September, when they finally realise their update wasn't fixing anything.

Hopefully they'll start work on a new engine now under the new guy for next year, alongside some updates to improve this years engine.

deuse · 27 Feb 2016 at 10:35

With all the laps Merc have done, could they do the 24 Hours of Le Mans?

Skeeter · 27 Feb 2016 at 13:14

The winning Porsche last year did 395 laps, which is 5,383km. The Mercedes team did 675 laps if Barcelona, whch is only 3,142km, and probably significantly refreshed the engine over night between the days too.

So no, not really. But I don't expect it would be very difficult to add a few beefier parts and a much bigger ERS to the Mercedes unit and get a decent WEC engine from it. F1 V6s do fit in the ACO WEC rules.