Pre-Season 2013 F1 Winter Testing: 3 - Circuit de Catalunya, 28 February-3 March

What's clear at the moment is that reliability wise Mercedes has been the strongest by far since the opening 2 days in Jerez - they've done 100+ laps every day I think. Red Bull have been in the garage a lot yesterday and today and seem to be taking new bits off and putting old bits back on. Webber was unhappy when interviewed last night and Sky have reported Newey and Horner seem unhappy. This is quite reminiscent of the last 2 days of 2012 testing where their new upgrade didn't work.

McLaren just look like they're shredding tyres and are thus having to drive very slowly. Ferrari are quite good reliability wise but did have a wheel shoot off. Lotus are having terrible reliability and have hardly done any laps again.

You've got to say everything is falling in place for Mercedes and Ferrari at the moment.
 
I'm surprised that Mclaren are struggling with tyre degradation considering they have Button and Perez. Maybe they've overrated their drivers' tyre management skills and have gone too far trying to extract pace at the cost of shredding rubber*.

Edit: P.S. Don't make a joke about that...
 
tranquility2k9 said:
Sky F1’s Mark Hughes’ Testing Pointers http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/news/12433/8537098/Barcelona-Final-Day-Live-

Race Pace:
Red Bull, Mercedes, Lotus as fast as each other in race pace.
McLaren struggling for consistency and with tyre degradation.
Ferrari better than McLaren over race stint

Qualifying Pace:
Red Bull running on heavier fuel loads, looking potentially faster by a small margin of about two-tenths of a seconds.
Nothing to choose between Mercedes, Lotus, McLaren, Ferrari
Top five teams could be separated by as little as two-tenths
Williams running heavy and potentially the best of the rest.
Click to expand

If that's the case, then it looks as if it will be 2011, as that's what that season was like, Red Bull ahead a little in qualifying, race pace similar to those around.

I see there's not much talk about Sauber anymore after they were impressing some in the first test, with many tipping a few podiums for Nico Hulkenberg.
 
Rosberg has just pitted and here are his lap times from latest run (different from earlier 2 I showed:

1:27.305; 1:26.695; 1:28.316; 1:27.366; 1:28.023; 1:28.307; 1:28.271; 1:28.961; 1:28.565; 1:28.876; 1:28.831; 1:28.759; 1:29.347; 1:29.235; 1:29.780; 1:29.795 (medium tyre 16 lap total).
 
BBC Sport's chief F1 writer Andrew Benson:
"The word on the street is that McLaren's long-run pace does not look too clever, although McLaren themselves insist it depends what run you look at and that they will be "in the mix". What is assumed to be a full-tank run from Jenson Button this afternoon went like this: 1:30.31, 30.27, 30.56. 30.8, 30.8, 31.17, 31.42, 32.05. Now, at 0.38kg per 10kg for fuel effect, then assume the hard tyres which he was on are 1.5 seconds slower than the softs (which is probably over-estimating the gap) and you get 7.2 seconds between a start-of-the-race lap and a qualifying lap. Calculate backwards and that gives a 23.11 - three seconds off what Nico Rosberg did this morning, a 20.1. Alternatively, calculate forwards from a 20.5 and you get 27.2, much slower than McLaren are actually doing. So something isn't adding up there."

Jenson actually did an even slower stint than that which I think Mr. Benson has missed. He did this earlier at what I was the start of a race simulation and did look very slow: 1:32.434 / 1:32.351 / 1:32.133 / 1:32.699 / 1:33.605 / 1:33.512 / 1:33.020
 
I am struggling to understand how McLaren have turned the fastest car at the end of the 2012 season to what is now being touted as a mid-field contender at best, in the space of a few months.

Something tells me McLaren won't be as bad as these predictions are making out.
 
It's all about a totally new car as they concluded that last years car had reached the end of its development curve.
It isn't that bad for a new car.
 
Brogan said:
I am struggling to understand how McLaren have turned the fastest car at the end of the 2012 season to what is now being touted as a mid-field contender at best, in the space of a few months.

Something tells me McLaren won't be as bad as these predictions are making out.
Click to expand

There's no way they'll be midfield, they just may not be out front and will be fighting at the latter end of the top 4 - 5, but knowing them they'll develop very quickly and suddenly unlock the cars potential. As a Hamilton fan I have to smile at all of this though, it's nice to see Mercedes doing so many laps. I used to get frustrated when McLaren would do so few laps in testing, even if they had no reliability issues. They also tend to mess things up for themselves somehow. As you say - how can they go from where they were last year to now seemingly struggling. Only McLaren would do that. Red Bull have evolved their car and look in much better shape, however, I'm still not convinced they're as strong as everyone says. At the end of last year everyone said they would be fastest and look what happened.
 
Well, McLaren looked really bad in 2011 pre-season, but were challenging strongly in Oz, so really not sure, although I am sure they would have preferred an easier testing. Mercedes are looking stronger than I thought they would, Red Bull and Ferrari, who knows.

Realistically speaking, there is still a long way to go, but I think it would be a brave man who would predict the grid and race finishing at Melbourne!
 
I am getting a little tyred of the reporting of Lewis's stints from yesterday being five laps long. They were five timed laps plus an out and an in. Regular 7 lap stints that just about every team do regularly.
 
Interesting comments from Eric Boullier:

"All the teams are getting definitely closer and there is definitely this question mark about the performance order between qualifying on one lap and the race."

"Today I think there is a bit of a challenge to understand what is going on. You could see one lap performance from some teams, and here the Mercedes team was fast definitely."

"But you have a different story when you go for fuel run and race simulation. The order you can see in qualifying is different from the order you can see in the race, so it is going to be interesting."

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/105820
 
What I find disturbing is that, apparently, Lotus had transmission problems on Kimi's car which limited the number of laps he was able to put in. If so, it appears that Lotus still has reliability issues which depresses me, since I hope Kimi wins the WDC this year (although I don't expect him to).
 
I still haven't found out how many laps Fernando did on his quickest run or the other runs in the morning. :(
Which is depressing and so bloody typical of F1 reporters total disregard for facts.

James Allen says:
Alonso was 3/10ths shy of the German, meaning his time was quicker than that of Hamilton yesterday. It was another promising day for Ferrari, who have showed very good race pace over the more lengthy runs and are now at the sharp end when it comes to qualifying simulations.
Click to expand

3tenths of a second is an age at Barcelona. In 2012 Q2 3tenths separated 3rd from 12th!
 

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