2012 Testing - Barcelona 2: 1 - 4 March

[Hail22]

Have you seen how much Alonso and Massa have to manhandle that beast? It's a very confused machine and you cannot hide that or call that a poker face, especially not at the final practice session before the first race. Ferrari will be having it out with Lotus who are easier on tires.

Yet they are smiling?

Remember Australia after Qualifying Ferrari were stone faced, they must be correlating information from the track to the simulator/wind tunnel and CFD modelling.

Last year Ferrari ran a car that came 3rd in the constructors...yet ran false figures in the wind tunnel, now that both tunnels are in operation and in sync...you only need ask yourself.

Is Ferrari really struggling or playing the game of "Guess what we have in our car"?

Lets wait and see what happens first before we ride off Ferrari, Macca or Mercedes.

[Schurcedes]

They have been on a downward spiral since Schumi left.

Odd, I had the exact same words in my sig from a couple of years ago, on another forum.

So before this gets moved to the yin-yang thread...

I don't think any of the teams have a major innovation up their sleeve they are hiding. We seem to be converging in on a consensus from all the trackside reports so far, which suggest Red Bull and McLaren have the best handling cars of all.

[Ferraripilot]

Have you seen how much Alonso and Massa have to manhandle that beast? It's a very confused machine and you cannot hide that or call that a poker face, especially not at the final practice session before the first race. Ferrari will be having it out with Lotus who are easier on tires.

Yet they are smiling?

Remember Australia after Qualifying Ferrari were stone faced, they must be correlating information from the track to the simulator/wind tunnel and CFD modelling.

Last year Ferrari ran a car that came 3rd in the constructors...yet ran false figures in the wind tunnel, now that both tunnels are in operation and in sync...you only need ask yourself.

Is Ferrari really struggling or playing the game of "Guess what we have in our car"?

Lets wait and see what happens first before we ride off Ferrari, Macca or Mercedes.

Now is the time for understanding your car, not for playing games which no one is are certainly playing. Ferrari had their first race sim today and it was not pretty. Barely competitive with the Lotus

[CHT]

Have you seen how much Alonso and Massa have to manhandle that beast? It's a very confused machine and you cannot hide that or call that a poker face, especially not at the final practice session before the first race. Ferrari will be having it out with Lotus who are easier on tires.

Yet they are smiling?

Remember Australia after Qualifying Ferrari were stone faced, they must be correlating information from the track to the simulator/wind tunnel and CFD modelling.

Last year Ferrari ran a car that came 3rd in the constructors...yet ran false figures in the wind tunnel, now that both tunnels are in operation and in sync...you only need ask yourself.

Is Ferrari really struggling or playing the game of "Guess what we have in our car"?

Lets wait and see what happens first before we ride off Ferrari, Macca or Mercedes.

As you rightly said, Ferrari finish 3rd in the constructor last season, with a massive 275 points behind RBR.

Ferrari hasnt been successful since in season testing ban, and I am not expecting things to change dramatically just become they took in a few engineers from their competitors. Technical regulation has been stable for awhile and there isnt any massive loop hole left to exploit. If you think Ferrari can pull out a EBD or double diffuser stun like we have seen over the the last few seasons, then you must be prepare to get disappointed.

The word on the pit lane is the Ferrari is still behind in testing as they do have complex issues on hand, but no one is ruling out ferrari to be strong later into the season. So I would have to go with that instead of some conspiracy theory that they back and Ferrari is playing games.

[yener]

If we are talking about smiling, I never saw Ross Brawn so much smiling in his interview since the BrawnGp season.

Maybe they hiding something also?

Remember last year, last 2 days of testing in Barcelona. Schumacher and Rosberg set the fastest time. Schumacher got out the car, turned his back to see his laptime and said "not bad is it?" And he had a really big smile.
Result? Horrible car.

[banibhusan]

There is nothing wrong in posing a smiling face when you know that you are probably going to have an extremely difficult season ahead, in which god knows how many engineers and senior personnel will be fired again.

I think they are just trying to more optimistic by smiling. Can it be the effect of "laughing therapy" for Ferrari engineers??

Jokes apart, I agree with CHT here. They have a completely different car at hand and it'll take some time to sort all the issues out. It's just a matter of time before they will be strong again. I guess its a price that they are paying for being so conservative in their designing in the last few years, when their rivals were always innovating.

[Pierce89]

Have you seen how much Alonso and Massa have to manhandle that beast? It's a very confused machine and you cannot hide that or call that a poker face, especially not at the final practice session before the first race. Ferrari will be having it out with Lotus who are easier on tires.

Yet they are smiling?

Remember Australia after Qualifying Ferrari were stone faced, they must be correlating information from the track to the simulator/wind tunnel and CFD modelling.

Last year Ferrari ran a car that came 3rd in the constructors...yet ran false figures in the wind tunnel, now that both tunnels are in operation and in sync...you only need ask yourself.

Is Ferrari really struggling or playing the game of "Guess what we have in our car"?

Lets wait and see what happens first before we ride off Ferrari, Macca or Mercedes.

Now is the time for understanding your car, not for playing games which no one is are certainly playing. Ferrari had their first race sim today and it was not pretty. Barely competitive with the Lotus

Barely competitive with Lotus? They did an extra stop and still came out quicker than Lotus. How is that barely competitive with Lotus? To me, that's better than Lotus.

[cirrusflyer]

So! Should we all be afraid of another RB dominance?
http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/new ... t-new-car-
I guess we'll see in about 90 minutes or so. Hope for some pictures of those developments.

[bhall]

[Meh.]

[Hail22]

09:50 Now Massa is on hard tyres, and goes quicker yet again with a 1m22.896s.

[desl]

double post

[desl]

Picture of the new RedBull-chassis with a different exaust:



note the different side pod

in comparison, here's a pic taken in Jerez:

[Schurcedes]

Rosberg dropped from a 1:23.040 on his first lap to 1:26.162 on the last lap of that 8 lap stint on softs.

[SchumiSutil]

The same story...
Maybe in Melourne the problem won't appear as Albert Park is soft with the tyres, but we can fear a repeat of Malaysia '11 once again in three weeks times for Merc'.

[cirrusflyer]

Rosberg dropped from a 1:23.040 on his first lap to 1:26.162 on the last lap of that 8 lap stint on softs.

Webber lost 3,2 sec in just 4 laps also on softs (23.3 to 26.5). I think they all are holding their cards to the chest.