Going for fastest lap in quali trim during testing isn't really necesarry atm, unless you need sponsors or have doubts about the car's speed. What Alonso did with Button or Lewis with Schumi is not all about playing mind games. It's also very important to know how your car behave when slipstreaming a Mclaren with such a big a new design of diffuser.djones wrote:Moanlower wrote:basically it means that the pace of the Ferrari was higher true the entire stint than the Merc, with fuel on board of at least 120kg which costs him approximately 3seconds per lap compared to the Merc with approx. fuel weight of 80kg which costs about 2.4sec per lap. In theorie the Merc could've been a bit heavier but I doubt it, and if so it would've been by a small margin.djones wrote:"Alonso’s 46 lap long run yesterday was interesting. He started out on new tyres with at least 120 kilos of fuel in the car and was quick initially, with a lap in the 1m 23s, then the pace dropped off for a few laps, but then the final part of the run was very fast. His final lap was 1.9 secs faster than his first but he had burned off 120 kilos of fuel worth around 3 seconds par lap.
Schumacher did a 32 lap run on a new set of the same tyres, which started out in the low 1m25s and came down through the 1m 24s steadily. His final lap was 1.9 secs faster than his first. So he had burned off approximately 80 kilos of fuel, which is worth around 2.4 seconds per lap."
What does this tell us? (im a bit confused as to what you can take from it)
So working on the fuel for them runs was expected the Ferrari and Merc were virtually the same pace, with the Ferrari just edging it?
I found it interesting that MS did not bother coming out near the end. He could easily have gone and improved his time but was more than happy to finish 5th (or whatever it was). He seems to be focusing on testing and testing alone, unlike others who either go for that headline time or messing abouta bit (FA messing with JB the other test).
Next week will be interesting since most of the teams will have their updates to start the season with and will do more quali runs since there's nothing more to hide so close to the start.