F1 Testing 2017: Week 2 Barcelona (7th-10th)

Syla5

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Steedie said:
I'm still clinging on to the hope that Mercedes are sandbagging big time in testing, as otherwise it's not looking good. I mean don't get me wrong, I don't want another boring year where Merc dominate both championships, but I still root for Hamilton so want him to get the WDC, but Ferrari could put a spanner in that works if testing is anything to go by
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Merc are sandbagging, Hamiltons 3 best sector times on super softs yesterday were put together and he did a 1:18:666 and this included backing off during those runs as well.

We wont know how close Ferrari/Merc/Redbull are till Aus but it would be great if all 3 are on a level and then it comes down to driver skill, and my support is with Hamilton there.
 

andicole0

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KiNgPiN83 said:
I hope they don't do a Red Bull/Renault though. I lost a bit of respect with RB with their treatment of Renault. Happy while they were winning but threw Renault under the bus publicly when things didnt go their way. Mclaren like them need to just work with Honda and support them and only after that doesnt work; go their seperate ways.
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Can't see them doing that, RB thought they could pick up another engine with ease and couldn't, but no one is going to give McLareen an engine.
Andi.
 

drunkenmaster

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It's hilarious seeing people think the 1:20 times in the first week were somehow special, and even the 1:19's, 1:18.5+ is probably on the high side for what will really be seen.

Again last year Ferrari did a 1:22.7 in testing, a 1:23.1 or something in the race(ultras in testing, supersoft in qualifying), Mercedes did a 1:23.4 or something in testing yet a 1:22 flat in qualifying.

Most teams don't go max, Merc especially, but I doubt Ferrari or anyone else will actually do a 100% Q3 like time in testing. I'm thinking unless Merc screwed up their car and Ferrari don't have the engine power they need, we'll see a 1:17 in Q3 here later in the year. Merc may test that engine out and do a low 1:18 but I can't seem them being bothered. They test the engine massively on the dyno, they have no need to show their pace. They know exactly what the max the engine can achieve is so they can work out their ultimate pace while going say 95% easily enough.
 

KiNgPiN83

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I'll just post this here again.. Not a merc in sight! Lol

This was after 4 days last year:

1. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari) 1:22.810
2. Nico Hulkenberg (Force India) 1:23.110
3. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 1:23.477
4. Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull) 1:23.525
5. Sergio Perez (Force India) 1:23.650
6. Daniil Kvyat (Red Bull) 1:24.293
 

SS-89

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I'm ignoring times tbh, what's more important to me is what spectators/journalists are saying about the cars. Last year it was well documented in testing that the Ferrari looked twitchy and lacked speed in slow corners whereas the Merc looked top dog. That isn't the case this year which to me is more promising than some meaningless times.

However, I think people will be disappointed come Barca as I doubt we will see sub 1:18 times now that Pirelli have elected for Soft, Med, Hard compounds for Barca.
 

Syla5

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SS-89 said:
However, I think people will be disappointed come Barca as I doubt we will see sub 1:18 times now that Pirelli have elected for Soft, Med, Hard compounds for Barca.
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Last year in testing the Fastest merc lap was a 1:24:8ish on the soft tyre. Also the selection of tyres last year was the same as it is this year. Merc dropped the pole time by 2.8seconds compared to their fastest lap in testing. So far both mercs and Ferrari and Redbull I believe have all run round the circuit on softs in 1:19 something's. Drop 2.8 seconds of their respective times and we are close to dropping in to the sub 1:17's let alone struggling to dip in to them at all.

While testing times are testing times, when they are view comparatively, it is reasonable to get excited about a 1:18 as you compare last years testing times to race weekend and its still a vast improvement factoring in the same improvements seen from testing last year to the race. These 1:18's are going to be smashed come race weekend, even on the softs.
 

Syla5

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I suspect that Ferrari might have pushed their engine and hopefully this is the same unit used through the whole of testing, the same as Merc did last year.
 

SS-89

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Don't think so...Mclaren would be screwed they've supposedly gone through 5 or so. As far as I'm aware, there are no restrictions until the season starts but I may be wrong.
 

drunkenmaster

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Syla5 said:
Last year in testing the Fastest merc lap was a 1:24:8ish on the soft tyre. Also the selection of tyres last year was the same as it is this year. Merc dropped the pole time by 2.8seconds compared to their fastest lap in testing. So far both mercs and Ferrari and Redbull I believe have all run round the circuit on softs in 1:19 something's. Drop 2.8 seconds of their respective times and we are close to dropping in to the sub 1:17's let alone struggling to dip in to them at all.

While testing times are testing times, when they are view comparatively, it is reasonable to get excited about a 1:18 as you compare last years testing times to race weekend and its still a vast improvement factoring in the same improvements seen from testing last year to the race. These 1:18's are going to be smashed come race weekend, even on the softs.
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I think those numbers aren't quite accurate, those are probably the first weeks testing numbers, most teams came down in the second week but not much, I think Ferrari's maybe came down the least. Merc had a mid 1:23 or so in the second week of testing last year.

But yes, the general point is that ultimate pace is, well it CAN be shown in testing, Ferrari and Williams were slowing in Q3 than in preseason testing, about the same as the tires they changed to really which indicates both showed their full pace in testing while Merc didn't come remotely close to it.


Ultimately this year and last year are different, we don't really know how a supersoft from last year compares to a supersoft from this year, the tires are really very different both in size, design and thermal degradation. While I've made the point before that 99% of the time in any practice or test session in the past three year(at least) Merc just don't run nearly maxed out, they may have made so many engine changes this year they feel they need to. So I'd say chances are they aren't running close to max and have at least a second in the bank, but it's entirely possible they don't.
 

drunkenmaster

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Alonso doing a 1:21.4.... on ultra softs, late enough in the afternoon that you could imply Mclaren and Honda want a max engine run simply to see if it can even do it, and at this stage of the day killing the engine isn't important. Actually it might be important to kill the engine at max output, to see where it will blow when at max output.

If that is anywhere near the car's maximum, the engine is a complete and utter joke, embarrassing bad on every level... that or the engine is bad and the car is no where near where it needs to be either.
 

Flibster

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SS-89 said:
Don't think so...Mclaren would be screwed they've supposedly gone through 5 or so. As far as I'm aware, there are no restrictions until the season starts but I may be wrong.
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I'd heard that they may have used as many as 9 power units in some capacity up to today. Some not failed, but changed anyway.
 
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