2012 Testing - Barcelona 2: 21-24 Feb

[dren]

He said it isn't a winner in its current form. It may luck into a win. It will possibly be about where the Ferrari was last year. James Allen says it is a podium challenger but not a race winner.

[Mr.S]

Whitmarsh...

I suspect the big boys at this end could probably go two or three seconds a lap quicker if they really tried, but that's not the name of the game.

Yep.

Someone down there can crack a 1:20 is my guess.

I am guessing a 1.19. W03 can easily crack a 1-20. Nico did a 1-24.0 in his Race Simulation. He ran 14 laps after the 1.24.0. He ran on Hard Tyres & no DRS.

DRS bring close to a second. And the Soft to Hard Gap is around 1.2-1.5s. Having 15 laps of fuel is huge. That is like 1.5s of laptime atleast.

I think Red Bull can break last year 1-19's.I see Mercedes doing mid 1-20's atleast.

[H.Lyoud]

So after 8 days of observing the cars i can update my list

OLD

1.Red Bull
2.McLaren and Lotus
3.Ferrari
4.Force India
5.Sauber and Williams
6.Toro Rosso
7.Caterham
Not Rated - Mercedes, HRT, Marussia
Barcelona (in order)
Group 1 (Frontrunners) Red Bull, Mclaren
Group 2 (Knock-knock) Mercedes, Ferrari, Force India
Group 3 (Midfield) Sauber, Williams, Toro Rosso
Group 4 (Backfield) Caterham

Not Rated - Lotus, HRT, Marussia

[ESPImperium]

2012 World Test Championship is now as follows:

Red Bull-Renault 47
McLaren-Mercedes 33
Scuderia Ferrari 31
Mercedes AMG F1 Team 40
Lotus F1-Renault 26
Force India-Mercedes 40
Sauber-Ferrari 36
Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari 37
Williams-Renault 22
Caterham F1-Renault 0
Hispania-Cosworth 0
Marussia F1-Cosworth 0

Points im using is the old 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 layout in order to gewt a better accuracy on who is fast and who aint.

Driver Distancxe to date:

Sebastian Vettel 1,498.353
Mark Webber 1,515.838
Jenson Button 1,716.911
Lewis Hamilton 1,824.318
Fernando Alons 1,214.622
Felipe Massa 1,596.677
Michael Schumacher 1,643.342
Nico Rosberg 1,799.227
Kimi Räikkönen 850.176
Romain Grosjean 958.037
Paul Di Resta 1,609.280
Nico Hulkenberg 1,366.987
Jules Bianchi 212.544
Kamui Kobayashi 1,932.860
Sergio Perez 1,216.553
Daniel Ricciardo 1,281.726
Jean-Eric Vergne 1,495.402
Pastor Maldonado 1,657.416
Bruno Senna 1,554.107
Valtteri Bottas 544.635
Heikki Kovalainen 1,209.631
Vitaly Petrov 647.045
Jarno Trulli 518.076
Giedo van der Garde 327.672
Narain Karthikeyan 0.000
Pedro de la Rosa 478.224
Dani Clos 0.000
Timo Glock 502.740
Charles Pic 1,065.995

Team Distance to date:

Red Bull-Renault 3,014.191
McLaren-Mercedes 3,541.229
Scuderia Ferrari 2,811.299
Mercedes AMG F1 Team 3,442.569
Lotus F1-Renault 1,808.213
Force India-Mercedes 3,188.811
Sauber-Ferrari 3,149.413
Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari 2,777.128
Williams-Renault 3,756.158
Caterham F1-Renault 2,702.424
Hispania-Cosworth 478.224
Marussia F1-Cosworth 1,568.735

Engine manufacturer Distance:

Renault RS27-2012 11,280.986
Mercedes FO108Z 10,172.609
Ferrari 056 8,737.840
Cosworth CA2012 2,046.959

Transmission Manufacturer Distance to date:

Red Bull Technology 8,493.743
McLaren Applied Technologies 6,730.040
Scuderia Ferrari 5,960.712
Mercedes AMG HPP 3,442.569
Lotus F1-Renault 1,808.213
Williams Grand Prix Engineering 4,234.382
Xtrac Tranmsiion Technology 1,568.735

And a little bit of trivia, Williams used the same engine for all 4 days in both tests so far, RS27-5326/1 did 1,642.788km at Jerez and RS27-5281/1 did 2,113.370km at Montelemo.

[raymondu999]

Honestly I don't understand why so many people here think they can glean information about the performance level of the cars from the testing lap times. No one knows what the teams are really doing, or what they are testing.

Actually a trained eye on the sidelines of the track can determine a heck of a lot. A driver on the track can determine just as much about the car they are next to a lot of the time, braking points, entry speeds, when a car can get back on an accelerator, and they are usually so intuitive they can know when a car is on a decent load of fuel. You'd be amazed at the knowledge these guys have just from standing there watching. I recall the commentary from Hulkenburg in a German magazine last year during preseason, it was as if he knew what was going to happen in the season already. Quite amazing. Last year they were saying Red Bull was indeed the car, and it was. The year before they were saying again that Red Bull was the car to beat. So yes, lap times don't matter a whole lot, but driver opinion and expert opinions for those at the track with good knowledge of racing cars do indeed have an opinion that carries a bit of weight.

Yes but dan was talking about laptimes, not handling

[SchumiSutil]

All in all taking that into account Vettel's average Lap Time Should be 1.28.5.

I fail to see what fun the Mercedes bashers are having. Nico's average 1.28.2 is VERY VERY quick. Vettel might have had maybe 10 Lap more of fuel which he did not Just to sanbag but Mercedes will fight with or be atleast 0.5 near of Red Bull.

Far from being a fair comparaison.
Firstly, Vettel did his race simulation on Wednesday, Rosberg on Friday.
Secondly, Vettel start it at 3pm, Rosberg at 11am.

And the track seemed to be clearly faster when Rosberg did his sim. A fair comparaison is done with Maldonado, who start a race sim this morning a bit earlier.

And I would say judging it quickly that after the first stop, Maldonado's pace was within 0.5s of Nico's one.

Even if the Williams has improved since last year, I'm very doubtful they could stay on the same lap over a race distance of the Red Bull in this track.

[diego1960]

So, do we have any expert opinions on these year's cars? It would be nice to hear something more than "Mercedes took a step forward" or "Ferrari is a difficult car to drive".

[donskar]

Posts involving swinging handbags have been deleted.

Seriously guys, the minute you type comments about another poster's personality that post is heading for the delete bin. I'd prefer it you did the deleting prior to pressing "submit" to save me the hassle of doing it for you.

Can we have a thread just for "swinging handbags"? Brings back fond memories of Monty Python skits!
But, on topic: I expect the Ferrari to be much faster once they replace their clear engine cover and install the missing link in their front suspension.

[SchumiSutil]

I found, for Maldonado, without taking account of the pitstop an average of 1'28.58
And for Nico, 1'28.16, without taking pitstop once again.

They did 3 pitstops, which bring an extra minute, and so, Nico average should be about 1'29.05 and Maldonado 1'29.47...

[H.Lyoud]

So, do we have any expert opinions on these year's cars? It would be nice to hear something more than "Mercedes took a step forward" or "Ferrari is a difficult car to drive".

Yes, Peter Windsor "All cars and drivers are fast and great"

[Hail22]

Going to throw a cat among the pigeons as per say.

My thought and Analysis is we cannot tell right now who will be winning races, yes RBR has the initiative and backup prowess of winning for the last two years.

But let us be real in the last decade both teams that were tipped to win a third championship failed to do so due to the amount of pressure placed upon them to win thus leading to failures (Ferrari 2003, 2004 lost in 05), (Renault 2005, 2006).

So just by viewing as testing has proved sketchy if we took a view of last years testing Ferrari came first in all tests then all of a sudden dropped off by 1.5 seconds when push came to shove.

In conclusion my (Guestimate of initial order of teams who will be in the top tier would be).

1- Mclaren (not a macca fan)
2- Ferrari
3- Mercedes/RBR
4- RBR/Force India

This is my opinion please respect my views based upon collecting data from this and last year as its very difficult to read due to fuel levels, possible sandbagging.

We need to wait til FP2 in Melbourne in my opinion just enjoy looking at new test parts for now.

[LionKing]

Going to throw a cat among the pigeons as per say.

My thought and Analysis is we cannot tell right now who will be winning races, yes RBR has the initiative and backup prowess of winning for the last two years.

But let us be real in the last decade both teams that were tipped to win a third championship failed to do so due to the amount of pressure placed upon them to win thus leading to failures (Ferrari 2003, 2004 lost in 05), (Renault 2005, 2006).

Ferrari won 6 consecutive WCCs from 1999 to 2004 and 5 WDCs from 2000 to 2004. They were way past three-peat mark

[fast_ian]

My thought and Analysis is we cannot tell right now who will be winning races, yes RBR has the initiative and backup prowess of winning for the last two years.

But let us be real in the last decade both teams that were tipped to win a third championship failed to do so.....

+1

History tells us there are many 2X (consecutive) WDC's, but only twice has it been won 3 times in succession (Turns out it's 4 to both JMF and The Schu.) - That's it! I'm not saying RBR can't do it, just that it's *incredibly* difficult..... Should they manage it, they'd be immediately among the true greats IMO.

Cheers,
Ian

[CHT]

Going to throw a cat among the pigeons as per say.

My thought and Analysis is we cannot tell right now who will be winning races, yes RBR has the initiative and backup prowess of winning for the last two years.

But let us be real in the last decade both teams that were tipped to win a third championship failed to do so due to the amount of pressure placed upon them to win thus leading to failures (Ferrari 2003, 2004 lost in 05), (Renault 2005, 2006).

So just by viewing as testing has proved sketchy if we took a view of last years testing Ferrari came first in all tests then all of a sudden dropped off by 1.5 seconds when push came to shove.

In conclusion my (Guestimate of initial order of teams who will be in the top tier would be).

1- Mclaren (not a macca fan)
2- Ferrari
3- Mercedes/RBR
4- RBR/Force India

This is my opinion please respect my views based upon collecting data from this and last year as its very difficult to read due to fuel levels, possible sandbagging.

We need to wait til FP2 in Melbourne in my opinion just enjoy looking at new test parts for now.

I am not exactly sure what is the purpose of your reply. On one hand you are saying we cant tell which team will be winning, while at the same time, you are ranking them in order for performance based on data you which collected. You are making it sound like your data are more reliable than others.

In F1, you cant selectively use historical data to try to predict the momentum of winning team, technical rule change and personnel change from year to year do have a big impact on pecking order. At the moment, with engine frozen, and no major changes on technical regulation, it will be very hard for a winning team like RBR to sudden lose it. The only major shake up I am expecting to see will be the teams in the mid field and that is where all the excitement we will see at start of the season.

[raymondu999]

So, do we have any expert opinions on these year's cars? It would be nice to hear something more than "Mercedes took a step forward" or "Ferrari is a difficult car to drive".

Yes, Peter Windsor "All cars and drivers are fast and great"

I think you've summed the gist of his analysis up. And his rubbish on "draining the car of g load"