2015 Spanish Grand Prix - Circuit de Catalunya - 8-10 May

[PlatinumZealot]

Lewis set up for race pace and lower temperatures. He has major under-steer in the heat but it will come back in the race when the temperatures are lower.
Good lap by rosberg still.
Rosberg's car has very, very impressive turn-in despite the hot track conditions (46 to 50 C). I think he gambled to secure pole to psychologically unsettle his teammate, which might pay off... but he will be burning out his front left tyre faster than Hamilton tomorrow. He has to do his hardest to keep Hamilton in the dirty air and hope that Hamilton does not stretch his stint.

[PlatinumZealot]

People jumping on RBs heads because they got beat by TR and how that magically absolves renault lol. Yes, RB11 itself is kinda average car all round, but how does this make the renault PU any better? It's still as bad as it always was, and it just shows TR is a actually a pretty good car.

James Key is starting to shine. I really liked his designs at Sauber. Sauber's fastest cars were designed by him.
I hope RedBull doesn't snatch him up from torro-rosso.

[Jano11]

People jumping on RBs heads because they got beat by TR and how that magically absolves renault lol. Yes, RB11 itself is kinda average car all round, but how does this make the renault PU any better? It's still as bad as it always was, and it just shows TR is a actually a pretty good car.

LOL, you're twisting things a bit to suit your subjective views.

Anyway, STR beating RB, again, shows that RB's problems are more then just the Renault engines, their chassis is not up to scratch either, which means they are in no position to point fingers at Renault as the only ones to be blamed for RBs crap showing.

[Juzh]

aero analysis for Spain. The guy knows his stuff

[SectorOne]

aero analysis for Spain. The guy knows his stuff

Right.. Like when he talked about the gap near the rear wheel on the Lotus?

[Juzh]

Haha tbh i havent watched this one yet, but some previous ones he's been more or less spot on.

[Juzh]

Yeah, lotus was a shot in the dark, but otherwise pretty nice summary I'd say.

[LuciferM]

Ferrari's only way of winning today is by 2-stopping. FP2 showed the lack of pace. Perhaps in the race it'll show better pace - 26 degrees forecast.

I am however quietly optimistic of that happening. Vettel's FP2 long-run times were very good - lap 20, first flying lap in race mode, 1:32.0. Lap 36 on the same tyres, 1:32.7. Had a cool down on lap 28, presumably the tyres were getting too hot, but that's an impressive 19-lap stint with consistently quick times. Maldonado on the 15th & 17th laps of his long stint was 2 seconds slower than his opening lap, Nasr was down 1 second a lap 5 laps into his long run, Massa 2 seconds a lap slower 15 laps into his long stint.

The Mercs were quicker - Rosberg even managed to dip into the 1.30.x range - but Rosberg was cooling his tyres down on his 6th flying lap of his longer run. With higher temperatures & a possible fight with Lewis up front on a high deg track like Barcelona, they could easily take each other out while Vettel sneaks by on a 2-stopper.

[Artur Craft]

So, after all the hype that F1 cars would be up to 3s faster in 2015(I always highly doubted that and expected no more than 1s) , they actually turned out to be only 3 to 4 tenths faster(Pirelli says the new rear construction makes the tyres 2 to 3 tenths faster, so the 0,6s improvement is only partially due to the cars).

F1 gets humiliated by LMP1 who improved 5s

[siskue2005]

Spanish GP: Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen rues freak tyre blanket issue

Ferrari Formula 1 driver Kimi Raikkonen said a "freak" incident with a blanket burning a set of tyres hampered him in Spanish Grand Prix qualifying.

The Finn had been third in Q2, but was only able to use one set of new tyres in Q3 after the unusual problem.

That left Raikkonen off the pace and he ended up seventh while his team-mate Sebastian Vettel qualified third behind the two Mercedes.

"We had one new set of tyres we could have used in last qualifying but for some freak reason it got burnt in a blanket and destroyed," said Raikkonen.

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/118876

[ChrisDanger]

So, after all the hype that F1 cars would be up to 3s faster in 2015(I always highly doubted that and expected no more than 1s) , they actually turned out to be only 3 to 4 tenths faster(Pirelli says the new rear construction makes the tyres 2 to 3 tenths faster, so the 0,6s improvement is only partially due to the cars).

F1 gets humiliated by LMP1 who improved 5s

I think you might have the wrong thread for this comment. Possibly even the wrong site.

[SectorOne]

Anyone else just sitting around waiting for the race to start? 3 hours to kill somehow.

[Harsha]

Anyone else just sitting around waiting for the race to start? 3 hours to kill somehow.

20 or 25 min earlier me too doing the same but with New FIA fuel directive it caught my attention and helping me to kill the time until race start

[mikeerfol]

GP2 is on people

[iotar__]

So, after all the hype that F1 cars would be up to 3s faster in 2015(I always highly doubted that and expected no more than 1s) , they actually turned out to be only 3 to 4 tenths faster(Pirelli says the new rear construction makes the tyres 2 to 3 tenths faster, so the 0,6s improvement is only partially due to the cars).
F1 gets humiliated by LMP1 who improved 5s

I think you might have the wrong thread for this comment. Possibly even the wrong site.

Let's say it is but I don't understand why it's an issue, they are faster than last season, lap speed is easily fixable and not really a problem compared to all the other issues. I'm more interested in how quick the cars are in relation to each other aka racing/competitiveness. Looking at Merc - gap - Ferrrari - gap - Williams - gap - RB - gap it does not look good. BTW aren't LeMans type of engines and philosophy, fuel saving and weight (hybrids) responsible for slower laps? Aren't fuel/hybrids related marketing reasons why evil engine manufacturers (similar to the ones that pushed engine change in F1) like Toyota, Porsche, Nissan are joining WEC? Or indeed Audi, you lose some some you gain some.

Start might be interesting then boredom today and hopefully no pitstop/strategy controversies. Although I wouldn't mind as a karma and hypocrisy check if Rosberg slowed down Hamilton 100% on purpose this time, the latter lost position to Vettel and heard later "it's not my business to care about your race" and "Rosberg didn't do anything wrong although we were almost ready to react" from Wolff and "drivers need to be egoistic" from Lauda [-o< . Unlikely scenario.