Who’s fast and who’s not? A closer look at the lap times from Jerez testing
Lewis Hamilton was fastest in the final day's testing at Jerez
F1 Fanatic has obtained detailed breakdowns of the fastest lap stints and lap times down by each of the cars in the most recent test at Jerez.
What can they tell us about which teams are quick and who’s off the pace? Find out below.
The problem with testing
Using test times to work out which teams are competitive has always been tricky. It’s harder than ever this year for two reasons.
The race refuelling ban means teams are now testing their cars with anything between a few laps’ worth of fuel and 200kg for a full race distance.
The teams have also become more reluctant to issue lists of lap times. While it was often possible to obtain these in recent years, at Jerez they were not being distributed.
In order to obtain the data for this article, I made notes directly from the timing screens in the media suite. Of course, this is very restricting and time-consuming, so I decided just to follow the dry part of the final day’s testing in the hope it would provide the most recent and reliable information. Ideally, I would have also got the data from the warmer dry running on Thursday, but I wasn’t able to.
McLaren
Driver: Lewis Hamilton
Best time: 1’19.583 (lap 3 of a 5-lap stint)
The most interesting exercise of the final day at McLaren was Hamilton’s long run around midday, just as the track had finished drying out. It was interrupted by a red flag caused by Michael Schumacher, but Hamilton seemed to resume his stint where he left off once the track went green again.
He did 25 laps at first, beginning in the 1’24s and working his way down to the high 1’23s. After the interruption he did a further 11 laps, peaking at a 1’23.4. This was 3.1s off the fastest lap of the day at that point. However it was done on a fuel load good enough for at least half a race distance and on tyres that had covered over 30 laps in cold temperatures.
Although Hamilton was languishing at the bottom of the fastest lap charts at this time, his pace was good given his likely fuel load. Later in the day McLaren went to the opposite extreme, sending Hamilton out for a five-lap run when the track was most rubbered-in. Here’s what he did:
1’19.952
1’19.684
1’19.583
1’28.133
1’19.992
His 1’19.583 was the fastest time of the four-day test, nearly six-tenths quicker than anyone else on Saturday. Only McLaren know how much fuel was in the car, but it’s another persuasive sign the MP4-25 is on the pace.
Force India
Driver: Adrian Sutil
Best time: 1’20.180 (lap 2 of a 9-lap stint)
On Saturday evening Adrian Sutil insisted his best time was representative of Force India’s true performance. It was set during a nine-lap stint, which was typical of what other teams were doing. Here are his times from that stint:
1’20.253
1’20.180
1’20.573
1’22.007
1’21.543
1’22.035
1’22.492
1’23.169
1’23.875
The stint was towards the end of the day’s running (though not as late as Hamilton’s) when the track conditions were most favourable. He did one more stint after this and his times were:
1’24.970
1’23.663
1’23.749
1’24.014
1’24.362
1’23.808
1’24.980
1’25.196
1’25.422
1’26.045
Sutil was still running when the chequered flag came out and this looks like a heavy-fuel run which could have gone on longer. His last four laps show a clear lessening of pace, a reflection of the graining problems he talked about afterwards.
He may have ended the day with the second-fastest time but looking at what the other teams did I suspect Force India are actually in the middle of the pack.
Williams
Driver: Rubens Barrichello
Best time: 1’20.341 (lap 3 of a 10-lap stint)
Barrichello set his best time two hours before the end of the session, early in a fairly consistent ten-lap stint. It was the fastest time of the day at that point, improving on Schumacher’s mark by three-tenths of a second:
1’27.014
1’21.768
1’20.341
1’20.469
1’20.443
1’21.017
1’21.147
1’21.66
1’21.755
1’22.305
He only did one more stint after this run before being stopped by a gearbox problem, costing them valuable dry running. The team also had a hydraulic failure to fix earlier on in the test.
The shortage of data makes it difficult to make a call on where Williams are. But there’s nothing to suggest they’re very far off the pace and the early speed trap figures from the Cosworth CA2010 were encouraging.
Renault
Driver: Robert Kubica
Best time: 1’20.358 (lap 1 of a 5-lap stint)
Unusually, Renault spent most of the dry part of Saturday running doing short stints – nothing longer than six laps. Kubica set his best time in a stint which ended when the chequered flag came out:
1’20.358
1’20.544
1’28.227
1’21.05
1’27.319
His 1’20.385 was a 1.2s improvement on his previous best time. It looks as though Renault either unlocked some performance on the R30 late in the day or ended the test with a run on a decent set of tyres without too much fuel.
I suspect the times Kubica was doing before this late run, which were in the high 1’21s and low 1’22s, are a truer reflection of the R30′s pace.
Mercedes
Driver: Michael Schumacher
Best time: 1’20.613 (lap 4 of a 10-lap stint)
Schumacher set his best time of the day earlier than anyone else – when the track was cooler and had less rubber on it – suggesting the car’s headline performance may be rather better than his fifth place on the times sheets at the end of the fourth day indicates.
I was watching at turns two and three during this stint and Schumacher was visibly pushing the car’s performance under braking, occasionally pushing it too far and gathering it up again by steering into the slide.
Shortly afterwards the Mercedes W01 rolled to a halt on the back straight. Unconfirmed reports suggested the team allowed the car to run out of fuel to work out how far they can push fuel mileage under race conditions. Whatever the problem was, it was remedied quickly enough to have him back on track again shortly after the session resumed.
On later stints he never got within 1.3s of his best time, suggesting he was working on heavier fuel loads. His times were consistent and all the signs are Mercedes have got a solid platform to build on and are among the front-runners.
Red Bull
Driver: Sebastian Vettel
Best time: 1’21.203 (lap 4 of a 10-lap stint)
The RB6 made its first appearance at the Jerez test and was in a less developed state than rival cars. The team were still having some reliability problems including a fuel pump problem which sidelined the car for three hours on Saturday.
Vettel must have had a reasonable fuel load in his car when he set his best time of 1’21.203 because it came during a ten-lap stint followed by a brief visit to the pits, during which time it appears no fuel was added, before returning to the track for another ten laps. Here’s his times from the first part of the stint:
1’21.427
1’21.423
1’31.349
1’21.203
1’21.656
1’21.980
1’22.230
1’22.174
1’22.193
Red Bull appeared quite a long way down the list of overall best times from the test but it’s early days for them and I believe they’ll be up there with McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes in the later tests.
Ferrari
Driver: Felipe Massa
Best time: 1’21.486 (lap 2 of a 10-lap stint)
Massa’s car came to a stop twice during the final day test yet the driver completed more laps than anyone else – a mammoth 160 totalling 708 kilometres, more than two Grand Prix distances.
The team did not disclose why Massa’s car stopped the first time other than to state somewhat enigmatically on Twitter:
Maybe Felipe’s issue was the same experienced by many other drivers during these days of testing…
This could an an allusion to the widely-held belief that some teams were allowing their cars to run out of fuel on purpose. Massa’s car came to a halt at the hairpin leading onto the pits straight, allowing him to pull into the pit lane entrance where he was collected by his crew.
The huge amount of running clearly didn’t cause any problems for Massa, who did his best time of the day on his 151st lap:
1’21.509
1’21.485
1’21.851
1’22.73
1’22.991
1’22.883
1’23.258
1’23.531
1’23.954
1’25.859
This wasn’t all that much quicker than Massa has been lapping earlier on in the day, so I do expect these times were set with a fair amount of fuel on board. I certainly don’t think Ferrari are two seconds off McLaren’s pace as the fastest lap times of the day suggest.
BMW-Sauber
Driver: Pedro de la Rosa
Best time: 1’22.134 (lap 2 of a 7-lap stint)
Pedro de la Rosa did a lot of short runs in the afternoon as the team carried out aerodynamic tests. He set his best time in the longest of them, a seven-lap run. Here’s what he did:
1’22.273
1’22.134
1’22.29
1’22.796
1’22.847
1’23.135
1’23.211
On the face of it the team are probably in the lower half of the top ten on performance.
Virgin
Driver: Lucas di Grassi
Best time: 1’22.912 (lap 1 of a 5-lap stint)
After losing so much time with their wing failure on Thursday, Virgin were eager to get all the dry running they could on Saturday. The team stressed that they were concerned with ensuring the car worked as expected and suffered no further problems rather than looking for fast lap times.
Di Grassi’s quickest time was 3.4s off Hamilton’s best and was set during a short run around two hours before the end of the session:
1’22.912
1’23.608
1’23.902
1’23.224
1’23.611
It’s impossible to judge them against their target of being best of the new runners because the rest haven’t made it to testing yet. That will change next week when Lotus join the action at Jerez.
Toro Rosso
Driver: Jaime Alguersuari
Best time: 1’24.072 (lap 2 of a 7-lap stint)
Underlining the difficulty of interpreting test times, Alguersuari was fastest on Friday (with a 1’19.919) and slowest on Saturday. The STR5 was often near the top of the times sheets on the earlier days, but not on the last day as the team did aerodynamic comparison work. Alguersuari’s best was a full second off anyone else’s.
Notes on the data
A ‘stint’ here refers to the number of flying laps done, for example a five-lap stint comprises an out-lap, five complete laps and an in-lap.
Over to you
What’s your analysis of the Jerez test? Whichteam do you think has the upper hand at the moment? Have your say in the comments.
2010 F1 testing
- Jerez test 1 statistics
- F1 testing pictures: 13th February
- F1 testing live: 13th February
- F1 testing pictures: 12th February
- 2010 F1 testing live: 12th February
- F1 testing pictures: 11th February
- 2010 F1 testing live: 11th February
- F1 testing pictures: 10th February
- 2010 F1 testing live: 10th February
- F1 testing review: Valencia (Pictures)
- F1 testing pictures: February 3rd
- 2010 F1 testing: February 3rd
- F1 testing pictures: February 2nd
- 2010 F1 testing: February 2nd
- 2010 F1 testing: February 1st
Images (C) F1Fanatic.co.uk
pankit said on 15th February 2010, 19:50
Gr8 work Keith … Really happy to see the dedication , since we dont get much hands on action all the way here in India, its great to have such information at hand … the other websites give u news , u interpret beyond the basic n thts wat makes F1Fantic the best … keep it up !
TMAX said on 15th February 2010, 20:07
Nice Analysis Keith.
I just read the following Article quoting Alonso and i feel he has really hit the spot.
http://www.planet-f1.com/story/0,18954,3213_5950779,00.html
“Alonso: No one has yet to pull off a Brawn”. I totally see that coming. Everybody is really trying to understand the car and get the best setup for race conditions. Baharin would the first place where the first clear indication of an order of the Teams / Drivers would emerge. Both Inter Team and Intra Team rivlary would get some indication then.
Scribe said on 15th February 2010, 21:01
Has anyone noticed the slightly odd McLaren air intake? Today good picture at the top, deffinatley different to yesterdays. Is that another testing device, or McLaren trying something new. It doesn’t look particularly efficient an i’m fairly sure its differnt to yesterdays.
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/IMG_2466.jpg
maciek said on 16th February 2010, 0:42
That is weird – no idea what that’s all about though.
Jhonnie Siggie said on 15th February 2010, 21:10
I applaud Keith for trying to make sense of this but IMHO we are trying to form an opinion using mumbo jumbo data. Data points as used in this example have little predictive value. Enron or Worldcom accounting comes to mind :). A for effort though guys!
pSynrg said on 15th February 2010, 23:24
It’s just speculation based on some loosely related facts, for fun, building excitement and general enjoyment.
You know, fun?
claudio said on 17th February 2010, 13:09
I totally agree, thatīs why this site name is f1fanatic and not f1reasonable….
three4three said on 15th February 2010, 21:49
Great article Keith, it’s good to have a team by team analysis. However, I’ll personally be refraining from drawing any conclusions as we’re not comparing the running on the different days and by different drivers so it’s even harder to surmise the situation, and unlike Keith I wasn’t there. Hopefully this week will give us more dry running so we can compare teams’ perceived progress over the course of the test, but looking at the forecast that’s looking doubtful tho Saturday may prove alright.
Spencer said on 15th February 2010, 21:57
Great article Keith. Thank you for helping us glean a little more from the usual testing confusion.
Two questions you should be able to answer. At Jerez, is there live timing screens available to the public in the cattle class seats? I was at Valencia but was really dissapointed that we did not have timing. I was reliant on the Internet and a stopwatch. I understand that there are screens in the media centres but do they have them else where during testing.
Secondly did the Mercedes GP car sound as bad as it did at Valencia? It really banged and popped and was some 10db louder than anything else. I read after the 1st test that they kept cracking exhausts. Not really suprising.
Westy said on 15th February 2010, 21:59
Fantastic report Keith. New to F1 Fanatic, really enjoyed your hard work over the last few days, thanks. I have trying not to read too much into the times. (Thanks Brecken) This season will be won by the driver who can look after the tyres and keep ahead even when the wick is turned down. He also needs a team that knows when to pit and push on fresh tyres, timing the final stint will be cruital. We are going to hear a lot about the benifits of each engine but this year will be all about tyres tyres tyres.
F1Fan said on 16th February 2010, 1:56
Is it me or does the new McLaren look super-fast even when it’s not moving ??
I think Lewis will come storming out of the gates in the first few races. After that it will be up to RBR and Ferrari to catch up. I don’t give Mercedes too much of a chance this year.
Jraybay-HamiltonMclarenfan said on 17th February 2010, 23:18
Lol it does. Looks like a missile cant wait to see it in motion at bahrain :D
phil c said on 16th February 2010, 2:55
Ferrari are the quickest car, with mclaren, merc and redbull close behind.
This years f1 is differnt to every other year. Having a car quick over one lap is not as important as having a car which is consistent over a long run. Mclaren seem quick but dont have consistent times over long runs. IE Hamilton or button cannot produce consistenly lower lap times lap after lap as the fuel burns off they tyres are different lap to lap. The ferrari seems to do this really well. Alonso did a 37 lap run which times were lowered everylap.
This will be the story of the season. You can have a quick car, but it will need to look after its tyres, and Ferrari has always managed that. The issue will come how you can use this tactically to win a race.
F1Fan said on 16th February 2010, 14:43
Disagree. The Mac is the fastest car at the moment, though by not much. And something tells me that they will develop it a lot further between now and Bahrein, same as with the RBR. I think the first few races will be contested between Mac and Ferrari, that means Lewis and Alonso. As for looking after tyres, I say speed will always be the main differentiator in F1.
statix said on 16th February 2010, 17:28
tell me what makes you think that rbr is fast? :)
wasiF1 said on 16th February 2010, 3:10
Nice work,it’s hard to tell
I think Ferrari,McLaren,Mercedes were the fastest.Sauber may be running low fuel run. & hope Red Bull be back from next test.
BasCB said on 16th February 2010, 8:01
Hello Keith,
thanks for a little insight in the behaviour of the cars on track. I am really looking forward to getting a better vieuw of the cars and the progres teams make during testing.
I just read an article on the dutch site Formule1Nieuws reffering to an article in the “La Gazetta dello Sport” (see link below).
It is an interestig thought, placing the engine in an angle to the car. I suppose that means some problems with aligning the drivetrain etc., but they might be onto something.
Although the placement of the engine can not be seen during testing, i was wondering, weather you heard anything from the teams or media in Jerez on this rumour.
http://translate.google.cz/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=cs&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.formule1nieuws.nl%2Fmodules%2Fnews%2Farticle.php%3Fstoryid%3D31791&sl=nl&tl=en
Pat said on 16th February 2010, 9:09
Pitpass are reporting Nick Fry’s gone from Mercedes
http://www.pitpass.com/fes_php/pitpass_news_item.php?fes_art_id=39949
pSynrg said on 16th February 2010, 13:40
Where exactly?
BasCB said on 17th February 2010, 8:04
Hello Keith, i just read this http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2010/02/teams-experiments-show-what-ferraris-plan-might-be/
blog by James Allen, where he gets into some further thoughts about possible stragies teams anticipated for their cars.
What do you make of this? Anybody els have some thoughts on this?
Jraybay-HamiltonMclarenfan said on 17th February 2010, 23:15
Yyayayaya go Ham! :^D . Also pretty good pace from many other teams I not expect from.