2012 Testing: Mugello

landogeorgelewis1

Champion Elect
Well I think that move has finally confirmed to the world that HRT are more interesting in setting up a base and a future for the team than getting results this year. Maybe it'll work. Who knows.

In other test news. We're not sure if Mclaren are sending their drivers but Fernando will be there for the majority

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2012/4/13282.html

Also as I put on the Caterham thread - making a mockery of the whole test - Caterham will be earning themselves some cash by giving GP2 pay driver Rodolfo Gonzalez's some running time. They prob won't get much feedback car wise but I'm sure his Venezuelan sponsors will make sure the cheque doesn't bounce.
 
I reckon once HRT have sorted themselves out with a permanent base and they'll be a much more settled unit. I'll donate some more money to the Website if their fail to do any of the tests in the winter.
 
I'm guessing if it was in Spain they'd have showed up - prob saved a bit of transport costs over to Italy.
 
So Marussi have announced an equal split between Pic and Glock

http://www.gpupdate.net/en/f1-news/...gpupdate&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=news

Red Bull haven't announced their line up yet but with Vettel having annouced he's playing in a charity football match 3 miles down the road just the day before I think its pretty much safe to say he'll be there.

Lotus will be giving D'ambrosio a run out for a day(which I'm interested to see) but Kimi and Grosjean will take over after that.

So once again this leads us back to Mclaren being the only team planning to not take its drivers which I thought was odd at the time. Lewis has announced he would 'like' to be there which I think is his way of saying 'come on guys give me some track time' and hopefully it'll make Mclaren rethink because I think they are missing a trick here. I know certain drivers are better for testing and working things out but none of the other teams seem to be running this strategy and are giving the majority of their track time to their race drivers to give them extra experience in the cars. Would hate to see Mclaren lose ground over a silly move like this.
 
RasputinLives Button is committed to doing a demo run in Budapest on May 1st so he can't be at the test and since the team don't fully understand the tyres yet perhaps McLaren are trying to keep things fair by not giving one driver valuable testing time in the car over the other if both can't be there. Plus it's a rare but good opportunity to evaluate their young driver Oliver Turvey against a known quantity, Paffett.
 
My guess is that it is more likely that they will be concentrating on validating the output of their simulator which is used far more by the test drivers than the race drivers.

"Right Gary, you know what the update feels like on the simulator. Does it feel the same on track?", that sort of thing.
 
jez101 what happens if Gary comes back and says "No. Feels completely different. I think we're buggered"

Viscount nuts to Oliver Turvey he is the next Gary Parfeet and I'll eat Sebastain Buemi's antlers if he ever gets a drive in F1 - and why on earth are Mclaren arranging a PR stunt at the same time as a test? not like its been sprung on em. Just think they're missing an oppotunity. If all the other teams were doing the same I'd say fair enough but lets face it even if the test drivers can develop the car just as well the drivers are still missing out compared to all the others as all the other race seat drivers will have had at least an extra day in the cars adapting to set ups and tyre conditions not to disimmilar to barcelona which is the next GP.

I can see no sense in not at least having them there and in the car for half a day each. Maybe I have it completley wrong though.
 
Viscount I hope this is not the case, but why wouldn't they send the test drivers to do a demo run in Budspest, if they don't want either driver to gain an advantage over the other they are practically saying also that the other teams are likely to gain an advantage over Mac by taking their drivers

I cannot believe that this team have contrived to be unable to have its drivers around at all for this test considering the scarcity of such opportunities, you can't even drive fast at a demo run
 
RasputinLives and Cookinflatsix it's a 4-day Vodafone event and Button won the last GP there so they probably specifically wanted him, and I assume McLaren are contractually obliged to abide by their title sponsors requests.

Anyway, hope they're able to make some progress with whichever drivers they take in the end.
 
Glad the team listen to at least one of their drivers

Reminds me of the revelation from Mark Hughes that on Friday the team tend to go with the decisions and wishes of Button

LH wants to test, JB doesnt feel the need, will the team allow LH to test or will JBs decision cover LH as well

Let's wait and see
 
Just watching Peter Windsor's Bahrain debrief, he asked McLaren why they're not sending Hamilton and Button to Mugello and the reason they stated is pretty much what jez said, "The bulk of the innovative testing is done back at the factory now in terms of simulation, in the tunnel, CAD... The test they're basically just treating it as a calibration test, so there's no reason at all why Gary Paffett and Oliver Turvey can't do that test, good mileage for them anyway. All they want is to put the cars out and calibrate the cars."
Though Peter Windsor and Karun Chandhok both agreed that McLaren should put one of the race drivers in for at least the last day.
 
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