Valencia Test

With the absense of the strongest team at the end of the 2009 season it is too soon to say Ferrari will walk away with this Championship, however we have to hope that the Red Bull is a stonking car else the first part of the season is going to be a turkey shoot!
 
Jenson has successfully created an impression... But it appears to validate all the overwhelming weight of predictions saying he would not be able to match Lewis. It is early days though and he could be taking it easy, aclimatising, getting to know the car... :whistle:
 
Brogan said:
Muddytalker said:
Will it? I assumed qualifying would be run on low fuel?
Oops! Of course it will.

In which case Ferrari could do a Brawn and walk away with it early on.

With the points weighted so heavily toward the win it is going to be even more important than ever for a team to not be in the sort of position Ferrari appear to be in. I don't doubt that McLaren can catch up but this time it is not going to be a case of strapping on a diffuser and optimising the use of a KERs button...
 
Petrov seems to be doing Ok in the Renault. It's been fairly obvious that Renault have some work to do after the first test to catch up with the others but at least the new Russian didn't seem to be that far off the pace when compared to his more experienced team mate.

I think he'll be quite pleased with that.
 
Nothing is won in February, and nothing ever has been!

Except these Grand Prix:

Argentina 1960
Brazil 1979
Brazil 1973

Oh well. Lets not write anyone off yet; the signs are not realistic. Do we know that the cars are all low fuel? Do we know that the F10 just doesn't suit the non-Championship Ricardo Tomo circuit? Do we know that something new(ey) will crop up before Bahrain?

Calm down, I say.
 
Right now, it's too difficult to say whether each team is showing realistic performance. Personally, as much as teams need to gauge performance under various conditions, I think they would be unwise to show their hands until the last test sessions, when it's too late to make major changes before the first races.
 
James Allen :embarrassed: noted yesterday that:


Felipe Massa's fastest lap - 1:11.722 - was set on the first flying lap of an 11-lap run.
Kamui Kobayashi's fastest lap - 1:12.056 - was set on the fourth lap of an 8-lap run.
Lewis Hamilton's fastest lap - 1:12.256 - was set on the fourth lap of a 20-lap run.
Robert Kubica's fastest lap - 1:12.426 - was set on the second lap of a 3-lap run.
Nico Rosberg's fastest lap - 1:12.899 - was set on the fifth lap of a 6-lap run.
 
Interesting stuff snowy. Makes Lewis's time look a lot better if it was on 20 laps of fuel and backs up Ross Brawn's remark that Lewis looked fast, though Valencia having a somewhat shorter lap than most circuits equates this to perhaps 15-18 laps of fuel anywhere else (?). Strange they're recording fast times in heavily-fuelled cars. Makes me think they're spending far more time monitoring the behaviour of the car than actually trying to go as fast as possible early on.
 
Where's GM when you need him?

No doubt he could apply his magic fuel/kg/time/distance formula to that to equalise everyone so we could get a better idea.
 
I don't think it's worth it Bro (even if I had fuel figures for Ricardo Tormo...)

They're not necessarily pitting because the car is empty of fuel. Alonso did a run in the middle of the day today that was 3 or 4 seconds off his earlier pace, but not a complete race simulation. If they want to know how the car handles in the early stages of a race they can fill it up, then once they've learned what they need to know, bring him in after 15 laps or whatever.

Rosberg might have stopped his run after 6 laps because he was uncomfortable in the cockpit, which he has been complaining about.

All we can get is the most general, broad idea from these figures. More important, perhaps (but not to be trusted completely either) are the comments from the teams themselves. Brawn knows Mercedes have work to do, for example. McLaren conversely seem pretty upbeat.
 
Fair points GM, I guess we'll have to wait another 36 days before we really find out who's where.

Have you got a special filter set up so you know when your name's been mentioned? :D
 
There were some interesting comments re: Alonso and Button in response to the article.

Sarah Holt makes allowances for Button claiming that as he's only been with McLaren for 1 month, it's no surprise that he is over half a second behind Hamilton.

Yet Alonso too has only been with Ferrari for 1 month but he beat Massa by a quarter of a second.
 
It's blatantly obvious that the Ferrari is dead easy to drive, even a monkey could do those times. :p

But seriously... last years Ferrari seemed incredibly difficult to drive didn't it? Luca and Giancarlo could do nothing with it and even Kimi struggled horrendously at most venues and compared to Felipe. :unsure:

What a transformation! :thinking: Or is it that drivers really do make a difference?! :dunno:
 
snowy said:
...last years Ferrari seemed incredibly difficult to drive didn't it? Luca and Giancarlo could do nothing with it and even Kimi struggled horrendously at most venues and compared to Felipe. :unsure: ...

Which makes me wonder if MS thought so too, and so declined the offer politely.
 
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