Pre-Season 2012 Testing: Jerez

[RasputinLives]

Well Van Der Garde has just been confirmed as Caterham's 'Friday' driver and he's gonna be testing this week as well so I think the Petrov thing might be dead

 

[RasputinLives]

Anyone think Lotus and Kimi might be going for a few headlines today?

 

[Bill Boddy]

So far HRT have done 8 flying laps to Button's 0.

http://translate.google.com/transla...-direct.com/include/livegp/we/temp/essais.php

Also in the bottom lh corner it gives the 2012 rankings:

Massa is first with Alonso second, the top team being Ferrari. All have scored 0 points.

Whitmarsh has decided to keep Button's running down to a minimum whilst maximising Hamilton's to hopefully allow Hamilton to draw level with Button this season.

 

[Greenlantern101]

Buttons 1.22.366 is much slower than the Lotus 1.19.67

Hopefully it was just a cautious first run.

 

[sportsman]

Anyone think Lotus and Kimi might be going for a few headlines today?

Don't think so.Kimi might be on low fuel runs but he is still running the medium compounds.Later today he will try the softer tyres.

 

[Road of Bones]

It's testing - I wouldn't get too sweaty about laptimes until the last test before Melbourne. If McLaren are languishing near the bottom of the timesheets and only doing 3-lap runs, then it'd be time to start chewing fingernails. Nobody's mentioned flow-vis paint or pitot gantries yet, which suggests they're just system-checking for the time being.

 

[Kewee]

People people people!!!!!!! The times your seeing are meaningless. They're all gathering data to evaluate. They're all brand new cars that hadn't turned a wheel until a few hours ago. Start reading a little into times during the fourth day of the third test in four weeks time. Even then we won't have the answers until Q3 in Australia.

 

[RasputinLives]

I'll doubt we'll have all the answers even then.

I agree the times are pointless but the non-F1 world don't get that which is why I think "Kimi marks return by topping timesheets in new Lotus" would be a great piece of PR work for a team that currently needs good PR.

 

[snowy]

It is genuinely fun and actually quite creative to speculate, looking for patterns is a fundamental part of being human. It sets us apart from other animals, in particular the fanboys.

 

[FB]

Are HRT running last year's car?

 

[snowy]

1 	 Raikkonen	Lotus		1m19.670s

2 	 Rosberg	Mercedes	1m20.219s  +0.549

3 	 Ricciardo	Toro Rosso	1m20.694s  +1.024

4 	 Di Resta	Force India	1m21.526s  +1.856

5 	 Kobayashi	Sauber	 	1m22.112s  +2.442

6 	 Button		McLaren	 	1m22.366s  +2.696

7 	 Massa		Ferrari	 	1m22.815s  +3.145

8 	 Maldonado	Williams	1m23.457s  +3.787

9 	 Webber		Red Bull	1m23.556s  +3.886

10 	 Kovalainen	Caterham	1m24.298s  +4.628

11 	 De la Rosa	HRT	 	1m25.535s  +5.865

 

[Greenlantern101]

The times are not totally worthless. Every car will at some point try a fast low fuel run.
And the teams will all have their spies there working out how much fuel is in each car and what tyres they are on.
The teams will come away from this with a reasonable idea of where their pace is.

 

[RasputinLives]

Are HRT running last year's car?

Yes

 

[Brogan]

Are HRT running last year's car?

I believe so.

They said the new one wouldn't be available until the third test.

 

[FB]

Jenson in action

 

[Brogan]

Ahhhhh.

A proper car.

 

[sushifiesta]

Button's just been doing system checks etc. this morning so you definitely can't read anything in to his lap times, which are in fact better than the Ferrari and Red Bull at the minute anyway. He's doing long runs this afternoon apparently so then we might see some quicker times.

 

[Porceliamone]

The more I look at the new McLaren the more I like it. It's not dull as I previously knee-jerked after its unveiling.
I rather hope that Andrew Benson is right when he states that the low nose is a McLaren design philosophy that is far ahead of the competition - that they've got a jump on how to deal with the effect it has over the rest of the car after basically designing the 2011 car for it. Only for the regulation to be postponed for a year!

 

[Bill Boddy]

Ahhhhh.

A proper car.

Not in my opinion, it's got wings. Look out of the window, real cars don't have wings.

 

[canis]

There are reports from both McLaren and Torro Rosso about "burning" parts due to the new exhaust flows. May explain why Jenson hasn't done much running this morning as they try to sort it out as the part they are reporting is the floor