Pre-Season 2012 Testing: Barcelona

I wonder if any of the teams will protest any of these latest innovations? Red Bull and Mercedes seem to have some very interesting ideas. Red Bull's definitely seems like it would be very hard to implement into any other car (not that I know what their vent does, this is mere speculation).

Mercedes' innovation is completely legal so a protest would be a waste of time...

Lewis believes McLaren are in good shape despite being hammered by RBR in the race simulation race. He says he was always on used tyres and believes that Seb used at least two sets of new ones. Perhaps that is true, :? I hope it's true.

Seb has done fewer laps over the past two days...

Mercedes in the morning was very quick over a very long run and if they sort their reliability out I can see them at least pushing Ferrari down a peg.

The only time we will see this in 2012?

I'm gonna rephrase that, This will only be seen in 2012- Lewis Hamilton in an even numbered car! That sight will be familliar off the start and that's it!

Very true, but what I found to be even more enouraging was he said the car was behaving very well in the high speed turns, better than expected.


Thats the problem with only giving the teams 25 sets of tyres for testing isn't it. Thats an allocation of 2 and a bit tyres a day.

In the bridgestone era that would have been plenty but these Pirreliis are desinged to be even more fragile than last years

Not with you Jos, didn't he have an even numbered car in 2007 and 2010?

And are you predicting Hammy domination? Testing is going well but I still see 2nd as the best they can get

Hamilton has had an even numbered car in 2007, 2008, 2010 and will in 2012.

I don't think anybody really knows where anybody stands yet. I wish they could just test on their own, turn up at the first GP, and then go from there.

The only thing that testing does for me now is make me unhappy. The thought of another RBR walkover disgusts me to no end. And it's not even Vettel that makes me that way. It's the thought of Webber being the only other contender that puts me off. If two guys could battle in the best car, then I'd be alright with it, but that's not the case.

Oh well. As I said, nobody knows anything yet.

Alonso making some downbeat comments regarding Ferrari progress -
http://adamcooperf1.com/2012/02/22/fernando-alonso-we-are-not-where-we-want-to-be/

Yeah but I meant by being beaten by a team mate! and 14 past is basically swapped

You get an even numbered car if your team mate beats you and you stay in the same team as him

2007 He joined the team so got number 2 because Alonso also joined but was world champion. (even)
2008 The team were removed from the results so I guess he just chose Number 22 (even)
2009 Reigning world champion so he had number 1 (Is 1 an even or an odd number I don't know)
2010 Jenson joined as world champion so he got car number 2 (even)
2011 He beat Jenson so took the lower number (odd) although I do believe there was a mistake made over this at the beginning of the year.
2012 Jenson beat him so he will carry number 4 (even)

I'm sorry Jos but I fail to see any significance in this whatsoever Apart from the fact he's been the team mate of two world champions, and a so so driver.

Given that 1 is not divisible by 2, 1 is an odd number.

We need a maths thread to go with the speeeeeeling and grandma thread.

Mercedes planning a race simulation today.

Autosport commenting on the RBR/McLaren race simulations : "it's still too close to call." This based on observations trackside with no reference made to the lap times.

Michael Schmacher running on the hard compound goes to the top of the time sheets:

21 	---- 	

22 	1:27.482 	

23 	1:24.376 	-3.106

24 	1:24.176 	-0.2

25 	1:24.466 	+0.29

26 	1:24.649 	+0.183

27 	1:25.257 	+0.608

28 	1:25.106 	-0.151

29 	1:26.353 	+1.247

30 	1:26.364 	+0.011

31 	1:26.574 	+0.21

32 	1:26.443 	-0.131

33 	1:26.677 	+0.234

34 	1:26.825 	+0.148

35 	---- 	 

It's difficult but we need to draw our own conclusions based on times recorded. I'm not being anti British in saying this, but over here in New Zealand all the reports we read are from the British media and don't appear to be that reliable. It's obvious they pick up anything negative relating to Ferrari and concentrate on any problems they may be having, while at the same time talking up McLaren and Red Bull. Am I being paranoid, I don't think so. I'll give an example from the BBC's reporting of lap times, from the first two days in Barcelona.
Vellel was .374sec quicker on his second day in the car.
Hamilton was .216sec slower on his second day in the car.
Alonso was .92sec quicker on his second day. That's only 8 hundredths short of a full second.

The BBC concentrated most of their report on comparing Vettel and Hamilton, stating that Alonso was half a second quicker on day two. When Alonso records a time of 1.24.10 on day one and 1.23.18 on day two, nearly a full second gain on the previous day, more than any other driver over the two days, the BBC should make a little more effort. Still, why let accurate reporting of times get in the way of the story if it doesn't suit the impression your trying to create, in this case, Ferrari struggling.

There's always the argument that no one is showing their hand. I personally believe all the top drivers will put in at least two laps when they lean on their car to get some idea of how the changes they're making react when the car is pushed. My understanding is Alonso wasn't on the supersofts when he made that 1sec gain. He did put supersofts on later in the session but didn't set a time on them.

Of course Ferrari have their problems, I wouldn't expect anything less with a brand new car. I also believe they're slowly getting to understand their car and I'll be very surprised if they're not in the thick of the title fight as the season progresses.

Follow up to the posting I've just made. This is straight off the Autosport site on testing as its happening.
Highlights so far. McLaren and Red Bull are close, Ferrari struggling.
REALLY!!!!!.....Button is two hundredths quicker than Massa, not two tenths, TWO HUNDREDTHS, and Webber a little slower than Massa. Go figure! I rest my case regarding reporting bias.

The reference to Ferrari struggling is not based on the times they are setting. A pair of Autosport reporters spent the day trackside observing how the cars were handling each of the corners and they say the Ferrari looked a handful. Also they have observed that Ferrari are still running baseline tests and say that is unusual for this stage of testing.

There is always going to be bias this way or that, and I don't want to stand up for Autosport because they are a bit clueless. I would love to know what tyres and if they were new or not were used for the race simulations yesterday. They hadn't even clocked that they were running simulations until they were an hour into the runs! Something that I was pretty sure they were doing once they left the pits for the first time after lunch and convinced of once they made their respective first stops!

I don't really get sandbagging. What is the point.

Testing the cars true pace isn't going to make any of you rivals faster. Your rivals will not be slower all year if you sandbag in testing. Sandbagging or not isn't going to make any difference to your rivals testing programme.

Isn't it better to test the car as you will actually be driving it all year?