Alonso is doing a fair amount of laps, I wonder why they feel the need for so many.
Why wouldn't he? Surely more laps the better as they can gather more data/feel for the car and tyres etc.
Alonso is doing a fair amount of laps, I wonder why they feel the need for so many.
The 2009 Brawn was a freak though.
So with three weeks to go before the season opener in Australia, the Brawn GP 001 finally hit the track - and it was true to its creators' predictions.
It was the fastest thing in the field by a mile, and Jenson Button went on to win six of the first seven races, the foundation for the championship he finally clinched on Sunday.
What is less well known, though, is that the car is, in the words of my source, "a botch job".
It was designed for a Honda engine, and it was not until December that the team knew they would be using a Mercedes. That necessitated some pretty crude changes.
"The chassis had the back six inches cut off to fit the engine in - the sort of thing you wouldn't normally do even with a test car," says my source. "And the gearbox was in the wrong place because the crank-centre height is different. There's a massive amount of compromise in the cars."
Those compromises introduced a significant performance deficit into the Brawn car, but it raced like that all year.
That is because the lead time on making a new chassis is several months, and at the time the team would have had to make the decision - in April - the car was dominating.
By the time it had dropped off the pace, and it was obvious the team needed the extra speed that would come with a bespoke chassis and improved weight distribution, it was too late to commission a new design.
The Brawn car showed what you can do with 18 months to build an F1 car to some brand new regulations with lots of money. They had easily 6, probably more like 12 months head start on the other top teams in throwing everything at next years car.
The car that became the BGP001 was actually a bit of a lash-up, all told. From Andrew Benson's blog on the BBC F1 site:
The Brawn car showed what you can do with 18 months to build an F1 car to some brand new regulations with lots of money.
Maybe we need to see Lewis in a RB8
Are you dropping a hint there?
Thats the end of the first three day test. The next one is 10th - 13th February at Jerez.
steering wheel? check...