F1 Testing week 1 @ Valencia

[Glaucus]

I hope rbr don't have the fastest car again, would love a 3 way battle with only a 10th or even better a hundredth between them. To see which is the ultimate modern driver alonso or hamilton, yes I ruled out vettle.

f-duct was harder than most to copy as you couldn't change chassis and had to try and use existing holes.

 

[sunama]

I hope rbr don't have the fastest car again, ...

Same here, though that's because I'm not an RBR fan.

It would be amazing if RBR do have the fastest car as this would mean that for 3 years on the trot, they would've had a car capable of winning the title.

I'd love to see some close racing between Alonso and Hamilton. I especially enjoy it when there is bad blood between top rivals...it adds an extra level of excitement, similar to win 2 football teams who are bitter rivals play each other.

 

[Tysonator]

So which cars are using the KERS system this year ?

 

[arknor]

So which cars are using the KERS system this year ?

i'd imagine all of the front cars and maybe only HRT without.

mercdedes are already doing testing with kers on the car today , mclaren are bound to have kers , ferrari are pretty much certain to use it , i doubt renault wont and rbr are more than likely to

 

[CaptainRAVE]

I can see McLaren being strong with a few tricks up their sleeve. Can't wait to see the new car. I just can't see them being behind.

 

[Duke]

Day 2 times added to OP.

 

[Weebull]

Di Resta \o/

 

[sunama]

I just can't see them [McLaren] being behind.

I can.

After 2009 and 2010, McLaren have shown that they seem to struggle be unable to start the season with all guns blazing.

McLaren did win 2 out of the first 4 GPs, but those came as a result of rain. In the dry, McLaren wasn't in the same class RBR or Ferrari.

As the season progressed McLaren became faster and they achieved their first race win around a third of the way through. They began to edge closer to RBR and went ahead of Ferrari (Ferrari later clawing back performance as we reached the last few races of the season).

What McLaren seem to be good at is developing the car in-season. Since testing was reduced, RBR have shown that they are the best in the business at releasing a car that is fast, from the get-go. They are also no slouches when it comes to in-season development.

In any case, we just have to wait and see. Right now, what we can say for sure is that RBR and Ferrari both seem to be competitive and appear to have started where the left off in 2010.

 

[SPARC]

It's a shame Lotus didn't get much done today, they really need to pump in the laps tomorrow !.

 

[utajoker]

i thought fia were trying to slow down the cars, it looks like this years cars are faster still.

 

[Sparky]

I'd love to see some close racing between Alonso and Hamilton. I especially enjoy it when there is bad blood between top rivals...it adds an extra level of excitement, similar to win 2 football teams who are bitter rivals play each other.

Maybe we need to see Lewis in a RB8

 

[englishpremier]

i thought fia were trying to slow down the cars, it looks like this years cars are faster still.

All the cars have so far been slower than last year around Valencia

Alonso - Ferrari: 1:11.470 was the fastest time last year.

track conditions this year are excellent too.

 

[Sparky]

Testing feeds look to be pretty poor again this year, hear rumours that the feeds we get were going to be available in free testing at least.

 

[Alibaba99]

Virtually anything can be copied. Of course, whether they can get the most out of the device is another thing.

Last year, midway through the season, McLaren tried to copy RBR's rear end (exhaust system) and they just couldn't get a grip on this new device.

Other people tried to copy McLaren's F-Duct, but no team were able to extract as much from the F-Duct as McLaren.

I think its a lot easier to build a brand new car (during the Winter) from the ground up, incorporating a "trick device". When you are retro-fitting an existing car with a new device, it becomes more difficult as compromises are made.

In any case, most teams like to keep their trick parts, a secret for as long as possible. The moment the trick part is revealed, other teams get to work on attempting to incorporate it into their existing car. Some teams decide against it, but others do successfully incorporate it. The double diffuser in 2009 is a fantastic example of this.

The double diffuser isn't really a good example of a system kept hidden until testing. The idea had been considered by many of the top teams (including by a certain Mr A Newey) and declared illegal and therefore not worth pursuing.

I though McLaren did quite well in implementing the blown diffuser on their car, but had the problem that the fundamental design of the diffuser wasn't really suitable to being blown. They were, after all, the first team to get the over run mapping to work during the race and not just for short bursts in Q3.

The main issue of copying something like the new exhaust system will be in the details and the way the car will be optimised around the system, plus in this case the heat management issues. Renault (and McL if the rumours are to be believed) will have spent months of detailed analysis and wind tunnel work (plus pre-lim work before that to get a handle on the basic ideas) which the other teams won't have.

The way I see it, the reason for McLaren's delay in bringing in the new car can be looked at in 2 ways:

1. They have produced a car with some interesting innovations (like last year's F-Duct) and by delaying "the big reveal" for as long as possible, they can prevent other teams from copying it in time for the first few races. We can also assume that they have run simulator tests are confident that their car is awesome and won't need much (test) track time to be competitive. Effectively, they will follow RBR's example of delaying the release of the full 2011 spec car. This strategy seemed to work for RBR in the last 2 years. It also seemed to work for BrawnGP in 2009, who released their car late and arrived at one of the last tests on the calender to dominate the time sheets, from the word...go.

2. They have had a few problems and are genuinely running behind schedule. If this is the case, then perhaps McLaren and their fans should be a little worried.

It would be fun to hear what the rumours are and from where they have come from.

The 2009 Brawn was a freak though. They gave up on the 2008 car after one race and spent the rest of the time developing the new car. There was a major change in the rules preventing teams from just iterating and further refining the previous years car and the two top teams were embroiled in a championship battle that went down to 40 seconds after the chequered flag had fallen which reduced the amount of resource that they could apply to the new car. It is also rumoured that Honda were running 4 wind tunnels almost continuously to refine the car as well, something that just cannot happen now.

 

[sunama]

Maybe we need to see Lewis in a RB8

Now that would be a little unfair on the rest of the field.

If you could get Alonso AND Hamilton in your cars though...now that would be fun.

Those 2 will disappear off into the distance having their own battle, while the rest of the field will have their battle, for 3rd place.

Out of interest, after 2 days of testing, are RBR satisfied/confident that they will do well this season? What is the mood within the team?

 

[Sparky]

Mood is very good, we know what we have to do, have the people to do it. Lots of work gone into RB7 and lets just say it looks quick.

 

[sunama]

Mood is very good, we know what we have to do, have the people to do it. Lots of work gone into RB7 and lets just say it looks quick.

Damn you!

Damn you!

 

[Locke]

Alonso is doing a fair amount of laps, I wonder why they feel the need for so many.

Oh and I thought I'd share a link if anyone hasn't seen it yet.

http://www.redbull.com/cs/Satellite/en_INT/Video/Red-Bull-Racing-RB7-launch-video-021242952972182

 

[SPARC]

Mood is very good, we know what we have to do, have the people to do it. Lots of work gone into RB7 and lets just say it looks quick.

Until you see what McLaren have done .






Oh gawd I hope McLaren are fast this year !

 

[Duke]

Alonso is doing a fair amount of laps, I wonder why they feel the need for so many.

Eh? The idea of testing is to do as much as possible within the very restritive amount of time. The teams with little testing are normally not able to, due to parts failing.