Your opinions on Barcelona Testing

[Mark F1]

Just seen today's testing times from Barcelona and it makes very interesting reading. Not suprising finding both Ferrari's claiming the top two positions, but it is nice to see Barrichello in top spot for a change, even though he did complete 20 laps more than Schumacher. I am delighted to see Nick Heidfeld third in the list for the second day running, only 0.637 seconds off of Barrichello's time. He completed a massive 86 laps including a full race run with no reported problems, and he really looks like he could have an even better season than last year (Don't forget that he was "Best of the rest" after the Ferrari, McLaren & Williams drivers).

Bit suprised to see Montoya in the new FW24 only in 9th place, two seconds behind Barrichello's time, but he did only complete 27 laps so he might have had some mechanical dramas. Jenson Button in the new Renault R202 could only manage 13th place after his 38 laps, almost three seconds slower. Mika Salo was the fastest Toyota driver, all be it three and a half seconds down, while Allan McNish fared even worse, four seconds down after almost 50 laps. They seem to have been relatively reliable in the tests they have attended this year, but they must be a little worried about their speed with only 5 weeks until the start of the season.

Im looking foreward to seeing the times from the last couple of days testing in Barcelona before they head off to Valencia next week, the excitement is well and truly growing as the season gets nearer !!!!!

[Speedworx]

For me, testing doesn't really mean much (unless I'm watching it)

The real stuff starts on March 1.

[Don K]

I haven't seen those results yet.
But I think you don't have to worry about Montoya; On day 8 he was one of the slowest, far behind Ralf in the other FW24.
But Ralf did have one day moreof experience with that car.
And on the 7th day of the Barcelona testing, Ralf was slower than the other Williams test drivers (who were driving the old car, as far as I remember).

[BD]

I agree with hakkiman. In testing they are testing very specific parameters. Testing toward the end of the season is alot more relevant to performance than testing before the first race.
Right now each team has a new beast and they have to figure out what it will do in certain circumstances, and how it will react to specific adjustments.
Right now you can get an idea of performance between teams, (example: Toyota will never be quicker than Ferrari at a test) but not so much between teammates. Usually the two or sometimes three drivers of a team will be testing completly different things. One may be testing tires, and another the engine. Completly different programs.

[Patrese256]

Originally posted by BD
Completly different programs.

Exactly. Only the teams know what they are trying to achieve and until the grid is decided in Australia we won't know how effective their winter testing has been.
It would be interesting, but time consuming , to aggregate all the testing times to see how everyone shapes up overall...

[Valve Bounce]

Testing is testing. The only thing we can glean from it are the long distance tests which show an engine can last race distance. But then, you still don't know whether Ralf was driving carefully to save his engine, do you?

[Red Dog]

Sandbagging perhaps? Don't you think the only time you can be sure they are going for it is on Saturday qualifying?

[nreed]

prost was good in testing last year, look how that turned out

[Powered by JPM]

its just that....testing.
i dont get it at times why people make such a big fuss about it.

and like VB said...a few might be saving their engines...while others are crash testing.