Pre-Season Winter testing : 2014 Season

[Greenlantern101]

Redbulls fastest time from the previous Bahrain test was 1.39.837 they are already going 2 seconds faster on 1.37.908 with 3 and a half days to go.
Clearly been running on reduced power in the previous test. I suspect we are still too see the full powered pace, and won't until Qually in Melbourne, just as they have done for the previous 4 years of winter testing.

 

[Quintessentially]

It would be short sighted to write off Redbull after their dominance over the past few years.

 

[Greenlantern101]

So a single lap qually on full power for a decent grid spot, then drop to midfield in the race because of over heating. Catch fire anyway. Retire.

BEN ANDERSON.

"Apparently there's nothing wrong on the Renault side, but the RB10 is suffering overheating issues every time the driver tries to push it harder.

"Then it's back into the pits to open up the car and improve the cooling before the cycle repeats."

 

[Incubus]

I think there will be quite a few surprises. I've got a funny feeling that this will be one of those years when the pecking order once the season gets underway will bear no relevance whatsoever to anything pre-season testing would have suggested.

What I mean by that is that the reliability issues experienced necessarily mean that some teams haven't yet had the opportunity to run the kind of set-up programmes others have enjoyed, and compromises will need to be made. Some teams will put the emphasis on reliability at all cost while others are freer to concentrate on performance.

But it's perfectly possible those who are putting most of their eggs in the performance basket will find reliability soon, and the picture might look totally different once everyone begins running "normal" set-up programmes during free practice sessions.

After all, 4 second gaps between the big teams are not realistic are they? They just prove they're on different programmes, out of necessity maybe, but you can't read anything about respective performances from multiple second gaps per lap.

 

[Greenlantern101]

Day 1 over. No times within 2 seconds of the fastest lap of the previous test. BORING.

 

[sushifiesta]

Eventually it slipped back in to the Mercedes, Ferrari, Reanult pecking order that we've seen so far. The four Mercedes teams in fact were the top four teams in terms of lap count today.

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Day 1 over. No times within 2 seconds of the fastest lap of the previous test. BORING.

It's not about all out pace right now. Getting a car that's reliable is key. See what times are getting produced on day 4. Red bull may have gone home by then though!

 

[RasputinLives]

It really does look like Merc/Mclaren at the min doesn't it? However I wouldn't be surprised if Ferrari were sandbagging a bit and were up there too.

As for Red Bull - who knows! Maybe they'll be 3 seconds off the pace but win due to everyone else running out of fuel.

 

[siffert_fan]

I keep wondering if the RBs would be progressing faster if they still had MW, rather than Ricciardo. After all, love him or loathe him, Webber had VAST amounts of experience and was pretty good at car development and set up.

 

[Incubus]

Yep. Webber's important contribution towards set-up and development work was often referred to by Horner.

 

[Blog Zbod]

Autosprint are claiming the chief problem with the RB10 comes down to battery temperature. But reports are that their chassis maintains the RB9's exaggerated rake. If they only had a propulsion system.

 

[sushifiesta]

I think there's absolutely no chance that anyone is sandbagging, at least in the sense of making themselves look slower on purpose. There is simply too much they have to get their heads around. Different teams will have different programmes which means the pecking order will be different in some ways when we get to Melbourne, but the teams have so much more to lose than to gain by playing silly games with fuel loads etc. just for the hell of it.

 

[mjo]

Rain on Friday potentially:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/290340

 

[FB]

Good grief.

 

[Il_leone]

Red Bull need to seriously get some miles behind them because they've done less than 40% of what Mercedes are running

- if they are lucky they can isolate the problem and get it fixed soon but as DC pointed out it is better to have a quick car that is unreliable than a slow reliable car because at least you know the speed is there and it is matter of fine tuning the problem areas

at the moment Red Bull not able to run full pace or race distance without worrying that something might go

Not sure how tightly compact Newey designed the Red Bull but he had vibrational issues with the Mclaren in 2004 which did not cope with the Merc engines and barely lasted 10 laps each race


It is obvious Renault are down on power as well so expect these guys to be at the back and be sitting ducks on being overtaken.

 

[chreden]

Maybe the rain will help with the cooling?

 

[Il_leone]

anyone fancy seeing a Marussia pass a Red Bull then which could happen?

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Red Bull are now keen on the idea for Bernie to have double points seeing they can claw back the gap in the latter stages of the season now they know they will be playing catch up

 

[Il_leone]

Rain is no good to Red Bull because they won't know what is the optimum performance of the car in full dry conditions

 

[Bill Boddy]

Renault are playing it cool over engine homologation.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/112689

But don't the other engine manufacturers have to agree to allow changes?

 

[freytheviking]

Are there speed trap numbers of the Ferraris? The rumors are that the engines are 75hp down...