2010 Winter Testing

[myurr]

Impressive running so far from Lotus - covered a healthy number of laps. Think Virgin may just about edge them on pace (think that will reverse by the end of the season, but again only just), but I wouldn't bet on Virgin being able to get to the chequered flag. Think Lotus look good to be best of the new teams.

[ArchAngel]

...And Renault ? What do you think of Renault ? Kubica made his best time in a 6-7 lap run. Then he made a race simulation starting with a 17 lap run (1:23s laps in the beginning)/pit-stop, then a 22 lap run starting with a 1:22s pace and ending with 1:20s laps...

Well, they've definitely made some progress since the first week of testing at Valencia. Looks like they're finally beginning to gain a better understanding of the R30. They seem to be competitive on lower fuel loads, but still look to be behind the big 4 on longer runs. They'll probably be in tight competition with Sauber, FI, and STR.

[marcush.]

To me we are all drawing conclusions littered by personal preferences and preoccupation.

Lotus ran more and more reliable then Virgin ,as they had one problem they could not fix in the field.
We cannot know or anticipate if there are more dead dog burried in the lotus or in the virgin car at this time as both teams have not yet covered significant miles .
What can be seen is the fact that Virgin shows more speed and this seems to me entirly a thing of their headstart into the project.If Lotus can make up the gap is dependant on both teams reliability -so their abbility to solve the issues they will invariably face and additionally their drivers ability to keep on track as well.
But at this time both will be the backmarkers no question about that.

If our forum member F1eng is anything real I cannot understand why the teams would hold back aero developments worth more than half a second per lap.According to his
outlines everything will change when a downforce addition of this magnitude will be put on the car and the whole struggle to set up the car starts from new.
Half a second in car potential is a LOT ,bearing in mind all teams have now worked
for quite a while to these new regulations and had just to adapt to the new fuel
regs and new tyre size.
In my understanding steps like this stem from erasing fundamental flaws and missing bits allowed under the regs but surely not a optimised shape of a endplate...or barge board...

[godlameroso]

Barcelona is a essentially a high-aero track Jerez in it's present configuration has probably two turns which are high downforce. In contrast Barcelona has 5 turns which require high downforce that's more than twice that of Jerez. Valencia has 2 at most.

It would probably make more sense to test aero components on a track that requires high downforce, over tracks that work suspension components. The two right handers coming after the first S turn last a long time, then after the hairpin after said turns the whole run uphill requires high downforce. Then after the next hairpin again the whole series of right turns require high downforce, in the past even more so, until they put that chicken in there.

[ESPImperium]

To me we are all drawing conclusions littered by personal preferences and preoccupation.

Lotus ran more and more reliable then Virgin ,as they had one problem they could not fix in the field.
We cannot know or anticipate if there are more dead dog burried in the lotus or in the virgin car at this time as both teams have not yet covered significant miles .
What can be seen is the fact that Virgin shows more speed and this seems to me entirly a thing of their headstart into the project.If Lotus can make up the gap is dependant on both teams reliability -so their abbility to solve the issues they will invariably face and additionally their drivers ability to keep on track as well.
But at this time both will be the backmarkers no question about that.

If our forum member F1eng is anything real I cannot understand why the teams would hold back aero developments worth more than half a second per lap.According to his
outlines everything will change when a downforce addition of this magnitude will be put on the car and the whole struggle to set up the car starts from new.
Half a second in car potential is a LOT ,bearing in mind all teams have now worked
for quite a while to these new regulations and had just to adapt to the new fuel
regs and new tyre size.
In my understanding steps like this stem from erasing fundamental flaws and missing bits allowed under the regs but surely not a optimised shape of a endplate...or barge board...

I pretty much aggree with you. Untill both Virgin and Lotus can get up close to the average distance covered so far for all tests for a team, whitch is 3,424 Km, its too early for a definitive conclusion. Id say that for both teams to get close to the average, they need to do arround 120 to 130 laps a day at Barcelona, probably ideally a 140 lap day simmilar to what Trulli did there last week.

Both teams need to find relyability, fast. As for Campos, they need to find relyability by the time they reach half way thru the season. But by then, its probably gonna be too late for them.

All the new teams really need or needed to be testing by now, if not, they are already half a season behind to me.

[ArchAngel]

Which is why it seems conventional wisdom for newbie teams to slightly over-engineer for reliability, even if it might be at the expense of performance, in order to learn as much as they can from actual on-track testing (and not just from wind-tunnels & computer simulations). They can then try to chip away at the performance deficit throughout the season, and introduce major updates during in-season breaks.

[Blackout]

...And Renault ? What do you think of Renault ? Kubica made his best time in a 6-7 lap run. Then he made a race simulation starting with a 17 lap run (1:23s laps in the beginning)/pit-stop, then a 22 lap run starting with a 1:22s pace and ending with 1:20s laps...

Well, they've definitely made some progress since the first week of testing at Valencia. Looks like they're finally beginning to gain a better understanding of the R30. They seem to be competitive on lower fuel loads, but still look to be behind the big 4 on longer runs. They'll probably be in tight competition with Sauber, FI, and STR.

Behind Mercedes ? I don't think so.
Wait and see...

[marcush.]

Barcelona is a essentially a high-aero track Jerez in it's present configuration has probably two turns which are high downforce. In contrast Barcelona has 5 turns which require high downforce that's more than twice that of Jerez. Valencia has 2 at most.

It would probably make more sense to test aero components on a track that requires high downforce, over tracks that work suspension components. The two right handers coming after the first S turn last a long time, then after the hairpin after said turns the whole run uphill requires high downforce. Then after the next hairpin again the whole series of right turns require high downforce, in the past even more so, until they put that chicken in there.

I would like to quote again F1Eng who pointed out that a f1 car driven at 200kmh does indeed produce so much downforce it will be the mayor influence on tyre temp.
so high speed corner yes or no if you don´t have the same downforce levels as you will have in racetrim ,all your mechanical setup work will have to go straight into the bin as soon as you come up with the proper downforce level, as this will rise the tyre temps considerably as it will of course directly influence rideheights etc.

[WhiteBlue]

so high speed corner yes or no if you don´t have the same downforce levels as you will have in racetrim ,all your mechanical setup work will have to go straight into the bin as soon as you come up with the proper downforce level, as this will rise the tyre temps considerably as it will of course directly influence rideheights etc.

That is true. But if you focus on static weight distribution and build on that later with aero loads it can be beneficial. My impression is that Merc wants a shorter car and are more sensitive to weight distribution issues than other teams. I find it plausible that they researched the chassis with low downforce config to find out how much they get affected by balancing issues and how much they can fight them by moving ballast.

[marcush.]

so high speed corner yes or no if you don´t have the same downforce levels as you will have in racetrim ,all your mechanical setup work will have to go straight into the bin as soon as you come up with the proper downforce level, as this will rise the tyre temps considerably as it will of course directly influence rideheights etc.

That is true. But if you focus on static weight distribution and build on that later with aero loads it can be beneficial. My impression is that Merc wants a shorter car and are more sensitive to weight distribution issues than other teams. I find it plausible that they researched the chassis with low downforce config to find out how much they get affected by balancing issues and how much they can fight them by moving ballast.

this is still not producing a full circle ,as you cannot separate aero from mechanical setup ,the whole aero is effectively acting as a spring (sorry for the words ,i don´t know how to express it otherwise),so if you reduce the downforce levels or even move the centre of pressure in a different ways than on what you want to race I´m sure you learn a lot what is of no value .there is nothing like change only one thing at a time in developing a car ,as all parts interrelate .
You have to separate the influences by analysis not by ommitting or modifying them in your experiment.

so what do you want to achieve by weight redistribution? you want to work the tyres in a ways that they are fading simultaniously on all four corners in the most even ways with dropoff very late during a stint.
I will avoid the term temperature here as we agreed some time ago that there is no such thing as a optimum tyre temp ,assuming the tyres have comparable or identical compounds front and rear tyres should be show the same temps front and rear over a lap and over a stint.
So if you add to the variable of low ambient temp the variable of low track temp
and less downforce as third variable ...the 5000$ question will be how this tranlsates into front rear tyre temp distribution and behaviour and what will happen when track temps rise (reducing front downforce and downforce created by underfloor) ,high ambient temps reducing total downforce levels counteracted by better efficiency of latest aero package ...

[jddh1]

I have a "rubber" question.
How many types of rubber are teams testing for Bridgestone? In a way, this is a chance for Bridgestone to test their product, making it better perhaps. Do you think they'll have, say, 3-4 different compounds of what we will end up saying "soft" or hard, etc?

[horse]

The Beeb seem set to have a big presence in Barcelona this week:

BBC Sport will have an extensive presence in Barcelona, with expert analysts Martin Brundle and David Coulthard, commentator Jonathan Legard, pit-lane reporters Ted Kravitz and Lee McKenzie and journalist Sarah Holt all attending.

They will all be feeding into our coverage on the BBC Sport website, which will include live text commentary on all four days and extensive end-of-day reports.

At the end of the test, on Monday next week, we will have video interviews with all the leading drivers, as well as analysis of what it all meant from Ted.

Link to Andrew Benson's blog.

[Hangaku]

Yay! The F1 coverage on the BEEB has been most excellent (comparatively), and starting the season off with this certainly bodes well =D>

[Richard]

Yay! The F1 coverage on the BEEB has been most excellent (comparatively), and starting the season off with this certainly bodes well =D>

Just listen to the radio feed for race and quali coverage, to avoid Legard. The radio commentary feed has Anthony Davidson and David Croft.

[ESPImperium]

I sence a pre season programme on the offing, posibly the sunday before the race, a 60 or 90 minuite long pre-season warm up to the season, simmilar to what ITV used to do, but in the new fresh and innovative way that BBC has brought to the way F1 is presented.