2016 season F1 Testing

[chillibowl]

Greem and Bella +1

Originally Posted by S griffin

...If he doesn't put up much of a fight this year, I'd put it down to him being satisfied with what's he's achieved in F1

also +1

the question of where his motivation level is after winning two titles in a row is a valid question and imo the proper way to frame the debate on LH.

anyways it would be nice to have this conversation in a constructive way and without threads being derailed by the 'hes a rapper and why is spending time with other rappers' type arguments followed by me getting angry as i feel those sorts of comments are more pejorative in nature then they are conducive to having a healthy debate.

for my part i will try to be less offended by those comments because i do think whether or not he can win 3 in a row and can Nico come out on top is going to be one of the more interesting story lines for the upcoming season.

[S griffin]

For too long the sport has been without characters and of course Lewis has been making up for lost years

[Mike Bell]

Back to the testing..... Mercedes still looking good in week 2, and promising signs from McLaren?

[chillibowl]

indeed back to testing!

yeah, Mclaren/Button put in a lot of laps today so thats encouraging...but that seems to be becoming the new normal with several teams all putting in well over 100 laps each and a lot of them apparently completing full race simulations.

its just testing and merc look to still have the advantage but im feeling like most teams are hitting a level of preparedness that we have not seen in prior years.

testament to the stability in the rules or is the need for testing becoming a thing of the past?

[old man]

Actual track testing would be the preferred way I am sure but the rules forbid that so it is all done on simulators and computers at probably no less expense.

I feel that the back room testing that Mercedes have done shows they have the speed so they try the durability of the bits on track. The flow of development from 800 staff cannot all be tested in a few days at a track so other methods of proving a part must have been developed.

Haas have just acknowledged the pressure of F1

I really am looking forward to how it all works out because I don't think either Mercedes or Ferrari have shown their hand yet. Will it be exciting, perhaps not, will it be interesting, certainly

[Neppatsrev Xam]

the full results from 8 days of testing

[chillibowl]

wow just a lot of laps from everyone.

hard to read too much into it, but i like how Massa's fastest time set on the softs was a bit faster then Bottas whose fastest came on the ultrasofts. (if i am reading the colour codes right that is)

feel like this is going to be a great intra team battle again.

[Mike Harte]

The problem is that it is very difficult to gauge under what conditions each car was being driven to give those times. Nobody knows what fuel levels they were running at the time, nor at what part of the day and more importantly, what was the track temperature at the time.

What should concern everybody, other teams, FOM and spectators/viewers, is that Rosberg's best time which is just over 2/10ths slower than Kimi's fastest, set on the ultra-soft, was set using the medium compound. Pirelli believe that there should be a two to three second difference between the two compounds.

I don't wish to sound alarmist, but it does look as though Mercedes have quite a bit in reserve.

[Richard C]

I agree with Mike's comments above. Given Mercedes just didn't even use the ultra soft tires and were fast on the mediums says a lot. Also, I expect Mercedes may have spent more time doing or testing development ideas than many other teams given the quantity of mileage.

If you put the track conditions (temp, etc.) aside, I think there is some good data out there for someone if they wanted to extract out pace from race simulations (in which fuel load should be roughly known) and I think teams were also doing qualifying simulations at the end of the test. But... even then some teams might still be holding back by not running full power or just not running as absolutely as fast at they could. But I suspect that some teams (midfield and lower) have little reason to sandbag, so they may have been running as fast as they could at times.

If I was to guess, I would say that Mercedes is going to be strong again, Ferrari likely have made steps forward, but are they in a position to challenge Mercedes? We will have to wait and see. I think Honda has made improvements, but not a great deal. I read elsewhere that they might be focusing on the tokenless 2017 engine, or maybe improvements that will show up mid-season. So while I wish it was otherwise, I am not expecting miracles from McLaren/Honda. Especially early in the season.

Haas seemed to do well in testing given how bad things could have easily gone for them. So they got in a number of miles, but I still suspect that may run into a level of reliability that you might expect from a totally new team (even if sourcing quite a lot from Ferrari). They missed large chunks of time over the entire two weeks of testing dealing with issues. So lets hope they have most of the basic bugs worked out. Regardless, I think they are doing fantastic. If you look at my comments in the early days in the Haas thread I felt that if they just did nothing but circle around at the back all season (and learning a great deal) it could be considered a success.

Frankly I really only have sort of paid attention to Mercedes, McLaren, Haas and a bit of Ferrari. So I haven't looked deeply at teams like Williams, Renault and RBR for example. So I don't have much to comment on for teams like them.

Richard

[chillibowl]

doesnt the yellow denote the soft compound now?

either way, also agree that Merc have yet to show their true hand.

[Mike Harte]

chillibowl, you are correct; my mistake. Red is super-soft, and purple is ultra-soft (it was so easy when there were just un-banded plus one colour). So, Mercedes only 2 seconds in hand.

Richard, Williams, as in previous years, just gets on quietly with testing, not seeming to try to set the world on fire, but being pretty consistent throughout. If I was to guess, at this point of the game, I would probably place them in third (like they ended up last year, I believe) behind Ferrari and Mercedes of course. Toro Rosso were also another team that were happy to just grind on over the two tests and did a lot of mileage without much major drama. Renault are still trying to find their new feet, whilst RBR showed flashes of speed at times, but, for a change, kept themselves out of the limelight and again without major dramas.

[Richard C]

My problem is that I cheer for multiple teams. I just have always "liked" Williams for various reasons (and should have paid more attention to them during testing). So they are my overall favorite. I also like McLaren (but not as much as Williams). However, I am also a big Jenson Button and Honda fan, so that bumps up my interest in McLaren at the moment. And... I can't help but to hope that Haas does well. So I have problems in that I will be cheering for three teams. I expect there will be some internal arguments at times during this seasons.

Richard