The anticipation is building as we are about to see the dramatic new 2017 cars running in anger. As always in testing the lap times don’t mean a great deal but there is one important factor to them this year: are the cars going to hit that target for an improvement of five seconds per lap (based on 2015 lap times at this track)?
Track temperature is 10C already and the sun is only just breaking through. The teams should get some pretty good running today – providing those new power units are reliable. (Less of a concern for Sauber).
Haas have chosen a rather grim grey colour for their car last year. It seems a fairly straightforward interpretation of the new regulations, though quite a bit of work has obviously gone on in the nose and bargeboard area, it’s nothing like as refined as some of the other cars.
Engines firing up in the pits, less than half an hour to go.
Excellent the wait is over :). I seem to remember last year Toto talking about merc was going employ a sound engineer whos focus was to improve the acoustics.. did anything ever come of that?
Where I’m sat the Red Bull and Mercedes garages are directly beneath me. It would probably be unethical to deploy a small drill and a fibre optic camera…
When nothing much is happening, tell us more how the life is there during testing. What areas are you allowed to acces around the track or in the pits etc. As it’s F1 I imagine there are even now 10 different access passes :) ?
Keep seeing Bottas’s name on the timing screens and thinking ‘Williams are off to a good start’. But of course its Mercedes now. He’s already on his seventh lap.
Observations: the RB13 is so ridiculously tightly packaged the floor is showing way too much, almost unsightly. The Mercedes has a voluptuous, slightly bulbous packaging of the sidepods which is absolutely gorgeous.
Note hardly anyone doing two days back-to-back. That may be too much with these cars given how much running they could do in a day. Mercedes are splitting their workload between both drivers every day. That suggests they’re expecting to do as they did last year, multiple race distances per day.
Morning everyone. Where you guys watching video? (Not that it matters atm as I have to go to stupid non F1 related work) Dammit. So jelly of Keith today
I remember Sky was broadcasting Live Testing on their F1 channel a few years ago (it was final Testing days IIRC, and also they broadcasted in the evening), sadly no footage is available now unless you have Sky package, then I think something Live is available in Sky Sports News HQ. Anyway, looking not bad after the first hour, fastest time overall last year was around 1:22 mark with SuperSofts IIRC, we’re at 1:23.5 with Mediums now, and on the first day.
Seems a bit of a fuss when my diet at these things is usually restricted to bottled water and crisps plus whatever I can scavenge from the teams (usually unhealthy quantities of coffee).
It’s just tradition of the last few years. Go do an installation lap, discover a new issue, spend all day fixing it and start again the next testing day. The same cycle gets repeated every day of pre season testing, and then they skip racing for entire season and use it as a test ground for the next year.
Ferrari off to a decent start, 18 laps on the board, more than anyone. (I can tell you this having successfully cajoled the press office staff to turn up the brightness on the timing screens so that we might actually read them. Ah, the glamorous F1 life).
That’s because I don’t :-) I prefer not to play favourites. As far as teams go my interest is in seeing more of them. That’s what F1 really needs. It’s a terrible shame Manor has gone.
Hulkenberg with his new helmet design reminds me of the magic Kubica Renault combination of 2010. I will take this as a sign of something special hapenning this season :D :D
Isn’t it just a plain helmet? Usually drivers run plain helmets in testing as they are trialling new concepts or different manufacturers, or they haven’t decided on the design of their new helmet yet
“It’s not good news for McLaren-Honda to be sat in the garage chasing some kind of oil system problem. The engines coming to this test should all be test-bench run and where the engine connects up to the system of the car should be bulletproof. Using the excuse that this is testing and things will go wrong is rubbish because you only have eight days and you need to hit the ground running. Losing a big part of a day is time you will never recover, and by the time the McLaren runs again, most of its rivals will have built up a lot of mileage. We’ve seen a lot of finger problems for McLaren and Honda during the past few years, and maybe this is the same again. Not a good start to testing.”
It just puts in to perspective how Alonso changed his target from fighting for wins to a mere ‘respectable performances’. So far, Mclaren is still far away from respectable.
As an Alonso fan, I think it’s great. It’s give him more time to walk around the paddock and start contract negotiations with other teams.
A very positive morning thus far for the Ferrari team. Everyone has been writing them off this season, but I think they could be the surprise this season. Plus with far more downforce and bigger tyres, I suspect this will favour Vettel’s style of driving, unlike the last three years.
I think Ferrari are looking good too, and could be the one battling the Mercs come Melbourne. About new regs suiting Vettel’s style… well… I don’t think the previous didn’t suit him. It just sounded as an excuse when he was underperforming
I love the look of the cars this year. It’s great to see them going back to ‘proper’ width. I probably won’t get chance to watch them at one of the quick corners today, but will make a point of doing it tomorrow or Wednesday.
Yeah i was hoping for better, If it continues i can’t even see Alonso making the first race. I’m sure it won’t though (but that’s what i thought before this morning too!)
Bottas is already close to the 60 laps mark. It is just remarkable how they start putting miles on that car straight away, it does transpire a sence of confidence that just doesn’t show in other teams. Vettel managed 38 so far, not bad
“A snapshot of how the 2017 Pirelli tyre compounds hold up? Perez did two ‘push’ laps straight away that were very close in time, with the second lap set to be an improvement until it fell away slightly in the final sector. He then backed off for a lap, pushed again on his 4th of this run, and improved to a 1m23.835s. Track temperature is 28.3 degrees, so cooler than we’ll see at a lot of places, but hopefully that’s a sign that the tyres will hold up better this season.”
Might sound a bit simplistic, but why does McLaren not just change the engine and send the other one back to be pulled apart by Honda? Surely they brought more than 1 with their recent history.
Wait until there’s someone you know you like, you don’t just choose. For example, I like Hulkenberg because I went to Brandshatch in 2007 to watch A1GP, and got a 05/06 season review, during which he won 9 races in a row at one point, so when he came to F1 I instantly liked him.
Do you think Alonso will walk away from his McLaren contract if it looks like he’s in for another year of struggling? Jenson’s retirement may be short lived
I don’t think he’ll cut the contract short, I think he’ll see out the season. But he’s made it plain he is prepared to walk at the end of 2017 if he’s not happy. And that appears to go for the direction of the sport as much as the performance of the McLaren. After all a Mercedes deal could be on the table for 2018.
Bottas got 1y contract for Mercedes so everyone’s keeping options open. If Hamilton is acting badly and Bottas is performing well, why not Alonso+Bottas for 2018 Mercedes.
Same feeling as Keith. He’s better off doing a season like the previous one to get a seat at Mercedes next year than just stopping to race and, maybe, watching Bottas doing a good job without being able to respond on the track.
And Alsonso said, he wants to be racing at 80 too. So if the new F1 is interesting, why not stay in for couple of years more. Last years haven’t shown that young guys are faster or better, they just take more risks.
Just Massa lapping at the moment, now within half a second of the day’s best time.
There’s a drilling sound coming from the other end of the press room which makes me wonder if someone else had my idea about spying on Mercedes and Red Bull…
I don’t understand why McLaren put themselves in these positions they use to pride themselves on 100% reliability in testing during the Hakkinen days what’s so wrong with this team its getting a little ridiculous now im thinking honda will pull the plug next season they cant catch the mercs and they know it in my view they will leave McLaren high and dry just like in the brawn days without warning. i just cant see them getting on par with the mercs and even Renault and that’s very sad too see from a supporter.
they say they are on par power wise with the merc 2016 spec ice unit but they can’t even get a year old spec engine running mercs 2016 ice unit was an updated version of the original so the information is widely available to build a resilient reliable unit but its honda and they still can’t do that .
The information is not widely available. The teams know the layout and general technical aspects of the design of mercs engine but they don’y know about the specific detail and design of every single part.
From what it looks like the issue McLaren have got is not a major design issue it is simply an oil leak which could be caused by any number of simple issues. The problem for them is that most of the fixes include taking the car to pieces so it erodes testing time.
playing catchup isn’t good in f1 though. as for the engine. engineers aren’t silly there are ways and means of getting hold of information (which we don’t know about after all McLaren have done it before ‘Ferrari gate’ doesn’t mean to say they wouldn’t do it again.
As I said, it is unlikely they will be able to get details to copy the engine without risking a severe punishment. The engineers will have gotten as much information as possible but just one small detail could be all that is needed to mess that information up.
And all the teams are playing catch-up to Mercedes due to the stupid regulations. We have no idea what state that Honda Engine is in. It could for all we know be much better than the Merc engine or it could be worse than last years Honda engine… we simply have not seen it do anything to be able to tell.
@Scribe: probably not a game changer..but the fact that Newey and Co managed to put something in a section of the car that’s really banned by FIA for any development work, is itself interesting.. though it may not be of much value other than cleaning up the disturbed airflow around badgeboards, eventually
It’s frustrating to see such a talented driver, that is Alonso, sitting at the mercy of the crappy Honda engine when we all know he has the skills to beat both the Mercedes cars in say, the current Ferrari.
Also, he has had bad luck with switching teams. Everytime he switches, the team he leaves become stronger and the team he joins becomes crap. Hopefully it won’t be the case next time.
Aw come on, he almost beat Vettel to the title in what, 2013? That was when Red Bull was the Mercedes of the time, but he still came close. I don’t know about your opinions, but according to me, Fernando is VERY talented.
Plus, I didn’t say anything about him being good, did I? Just skillful. :)
1) The RB was never Mercedes in its time. Webber proving this.
2) Yes Alonso drove good in 2013, but no better than lets say Vettel in 2015. Without checking the exact facts of 2013, I am sure Alonso benefitted some bad luck Vettel had which cost him valuable points. And lastly, Hamilton in the same car as a rookie was more than a match. What makes you think he could beat him in a Ferrari?
Skillful is a synonym for good. It was 2012 that Alonso nearly beat Vettel, and the Red Bull certainly wasn’t the mercedes of that year, for much of the season Mclaren were faster and Ferrari had the best car in the wet, bearing in mind there were a lot of wet sessions that year. He drove well, and is a great driver, and but he woudn’t be able to beat a merc were he still driving for ferrari, he’d have enough on his plate trying to beat the red bulls (based on 2016 car performance).
Also there are only so many times that a driver can be unlucky when they change teams, before some sort of correlation must be considered. For the last decade, every time he has joined a new team they have made little major progress. Perhaps one of his weaknesses is that he isn’t good at helping to develop the car.
Frustrating sure, but no point jumping all over Honda. It’s just one oil leak that may have revealed something that will educate them to never have that happen again this season…for all we know. And as to ‘every time he switches’ I don’t think his last move, away from Ferrari, left them stronger.
Well… Honda had nothing but failures to educate themselves over the past 2 seasons. To me .. they seem over over educated and under achieving incompetents
And of course Mr Alonso was the undisputed number one driver. That fact is conveniently glossed over by those wearing tinfoil hats because of course, if he had a strong driver next to him he would have taken points off Alonso. Just like 07 and 15.
After blame Dennis and Capisto for the poor results and the problems with the car, it seems that this 2017 model could maintain the MP4 name, because its the same old thing since the arrival of the “Alonso-Honda Era”
Keith – can we get an indicator of which tyres each driver is setting their best times on? This would be very helpful in seeing how representative each time is!
Ten years ago… 2007…. the first iPhone AND the first Adrian Newey Red Bull car… In that net 11 year timespan we have had 7 new iphones and 4 dominant Red Bulls…..
Don’t think FOM offer live testing coverage to broadcasters. Truthfully, it’s not very exciting. You know all the silly whingeing about how “boring” practice sessions can be? That times a hundred. They’re not meant to entertain.
Part of me loves the idea of being there @keithcollantine, being very envious of you – but I think I’m probably best off being grateful to just pay F1fanatic membership and having you provide ace coverage, leaving me to see the pics, and take a look once every while during the week!
I don’t get why so many are suprised by McLaren-Honda on this test. If they have modified the engine as much as they did, it’s quite normal to have big fixes to do at the beginning (like very team had to). Hopefully it is for the best afterwards…
“According to our colleagues in the German media, McLaren ‘McLaren problems caused by a new oil tank’ which is ‘smaller and lighter’ – and it, would appear, more problematic too!” – Sky
So it may be another two years to get this engine up to speed, as it seems like they have just caught up with the Merc and their original engine layout/concept!
Is this the most productive day for Ferrari in the last 3 years (in terms of number of laps). I remember in the last 2 Seb years, they haven’t been able to do as many laps as other teams.
I’ve managed to find a YouTube feed with yesterday’s Sky coverage (presented by Craig Slater) but can’t see it on their live planner – anyone know where to watch it?
Good morning from the Circuit de Catalunya everyone! Today’s test starts in half an hour and we will have Lance Stroll, Stoffel Vandoorne and Antonio Giovinazz joining the runners.
I’m curious to see Max’s pace in the Red Bull today. Let’s hope they can get a trouble free 100+ laps in today. Would be great to get a slight hint of the pecking order already
It’s something we need a definition for, isn’t it? Strictly speaking it would have to be someone who’s done zero races. Or you could say no more than five, or ten, or half a season…
He was a reserve driver last year and he is a race driver this season. So he should be eligible.
Would be funny if Stroll gets it though… looking at Mclaren’s challenger this year, it’s entirely possible that Stroll will finish the year with a higher points total than Stoffel
I was at the test yesterday and must say engine noise sounded quite impressive, albeit in the lower gears. For some reason the cars are really quite quiet down the main straight when at top speed. Bottas almost snuck up on me at turn one on a number of occasions! All in all, however, I would say it is an improvement.
This is just getting hilarious now. So I guess Mclaren hasn’t completed investigating the issue yet.. or is another problem? Maybe the shape and size of the ICE is now the problem.
I have to say I was impressed how Boullier took it all on the chin yesterday in a media briefing which was rather strained at times. But putting a brave face on this is the least of their challenges..
Looking at the zero size cars like Red Bull and Ferrari, I almost worry about the driving in close quarters. The floor is so big and so low, that it could be deceptive when going wheel to weel, and the drivers hit each other’s floors. Thoughts?
It’s inset from the edge of the wheels by the same amount as last year. But yes, Massa suggested yesterday there could be more contact in the opening races at least because of the wider cars.
I saw that it’s inset from the edge of the wheels the same amount, but the body is further away, and at 250 kph, and with the floor practically invisible, I can imagine the body being a framing target, which could be problematic?
Hamilton zaps back in, attacking the pit box entry – need to get a feel for the new car width. Alonso was saying yesterday how little details like this is one of the things he’s missed a chance to practice after yesterday:
I like the fact the cars have got difference pieces on which distinguish between them. I don’t want them to all look the same, then it would be NASCAR. I worry that’s where F1’s heading with all this talk of banning this and that because some people don’t like the aesthetics.
I agree with you on distinguishing pieces. Nor would I ban anything because it’s ugly. But the T-wing is a thin, weird little appendage on the rear. It’s just unpleasing.
As a spectacle, I’ve a feeling Mercedes will ride off into the sunset again this year. Except this year, Rosberg won’t be there to make it half competitive. While bottas is a decent driver I fear he is a yes man. ‘Do as your told or no contract extension for next year’ Hamilton will walk to the championship unfortunately imo. I sincerely hope not
I’ve seen an interesting quote from Autosport regarding Honda.
It’s worry to see Honda say that there are concerns about its oil tank based on what happened yesterday. To discover an oil tank shape is potentially incorrect suggests something is seriously wrong as normally it only shows up as a pickup problem in fast corners. To discover it on an installation lap at lower speeds suggests it’s a fundamental problem. The oil tank is vital to the engine and something most teams have a very good understanding of and very good test rigs to simulate all the forces and flows. So for McLaren and Honda to come to the first test session with a potential problem is a concern. It seems they are still missing out on the basics.
If that is true then it’s unacceptable from Honda to do that huge of a mistake on their 3rd year.
From the BBC: “Honda’s “oil system” problem that kept Fernando Alonso’s McLaren in the garage for much of yesterday was indeed caused by the shape of the oil tank which did not allow the oil to be properly scavenged.
The tank was modified prior to the first day of the test, but the problem persisted.
Further modifications were made to the tank last night.”
Yeah ..pretty much what Gary Anderson has summarized on Autosport. It’s a fundamental design issue. Looks like my season ends even before it starts once again.
Remember this is very early days still. I suspect a car which is competitive but breaks down occasionally would not be a huge disappointment. And there’s always the possibility of a Mercedes drive in 2018.
I don’t think Mercedes will ever consider Alonso. Bottas is boringly slow, but if he will deliver good enough results to help the team earn the WCC, then I don’t see any reason to replace Bottas. Especially if Bottas will always be second to Hamilton.
Not unless Red Bull is just slightly behind with 2 very competitive drivers. Honestly, Alonso’s fate lies in the hands of Bottas underperforming/Hamilton exploding/Red Bull catching up.
Mercedes would be foolish to turn down Alonso if they really need a driver who can deliver them results better than Rosberg did.
All quiet on the track now, Raikkonen still fastest on 1’23.718.
Incidentally the timing screens don’t include tyre information so the only way to get that is monitor every car while it’s on track. And the same tyre markings used in the races aren’t always used in testing.
Track temperature is only 16C by the way so don’t get too hung up on tyre compounds. This is way cooler than we’d see at a typical race. Ricciardo was talking about this yesterday:
Nah, I can read Portuguese fluently, I just don’t do it regularly. I followed your link and couldn’t resist taking a quick look at the comments. When I reached the second one (“Que erro de amador….”), I remembered that there are annoying people in any given linguistic community.
So, in theory I like the T-Wings, but I don’t doubt they’ll ban them next year as they’re essentially slightly more aesthetically pleasing X-Wings born out of pure regulatory oversight.
What I’d love to see come back is blown diffusers, now we’re back in the turbo era, surely, cars creating down-force independent of oncoming airflow is exactly what F1 wants?
Do you think it might be a good place to establish a trade off then? For instance, ask Ross Brawn’s team of crack aerodynamics interns what they think causes the most amount of dirty air coming off the cars, including uncovered wheels, devise a regulatory solution and if it takes off a number of points of down-force release an equivalent amount of undercar or exhaust blown areas.
I mean, we know what causes dirty air, it’s wings! We know there’s a way of creating downforce without them, we know that wings hurt close racing. Much as I like the idea of this years faster cars, are you not concerned by the possibility that 3/4’s of next years races will be processional?
It’s a very different situation for their team, first totally new car in a while, brand new engine, lots of new staff and operational stuff to figure out.
still it doesn’t answer why it is embarrassing for the sport. if they don’t get their act together they will be a new Sauber. I believe merc will pull out of F1 after they get enough of people whining. Then it will be domination of Ferrari & RB/Renault. Mclaren doesn’t have the right people to get to the top, that’s the fact.
It remains to be seen.
Any news on Ferrari’s rear end? Is there an actual issue?
Given McLaren’s oil tank issue yesterday, and having a quick look at Alonso’s top speed at the end of the straight is it safe to say that the Honda is still running in safe mode?
Impossible to read that from the top speed. In fact, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that this top speed is meaningless. If they had really tuned down the engine so much that they lose 25 kph on the straight, it’d be really difficult to achieve a lap time that’s 3 seconds slower than the leaders’. So there’s a mismatch between lap time and top speed, which indicates that the car was actually faster on the straight than the speed trap shows. Probably due to lifting & coasting before the speed trap.
Well, no, quite the opposite. If the top speed really were that low, the time loss would almost automatically be greater than yesterday’s 3 seconds. The fact that Alonso was ‘only’ 3 seconds slower than Hamilton can only mean one thing: The speed registered by the speed trap cannot be the car’s top speed. It is impossible to tell how fast it really was, and much less if the engine was tuned down more than usual during testing. The only valid conclusion is that the car must’ve been faster than the speed trap shows. Everything else is speculative and/or circular reasoning.
Not a great deal of running right now. Conditions not quite as good as yesterday. Cloud cover has kept a lid on track temperatures – they peaked at 25C half an hour ago but have fallen since. And the wind has increased too. Kvyat has just pitted leaving, inevitably, just the Mercedes of Hamilton still on the track.
Mclaren’s lost power from the power unit. They’re still clueless about what caused the issue, as they are clueless about yesterday’s issue. Might be a wrap for them today.
For stat nerds like myself, the fastest testing time at Circuit de Cat on the current layout is 1:18:926 (unofficially) in 2009 by the Brawn – fastest pole time was M.Webber in 2010 1:19:995
If the pressure will indeed be lowered down from the 2016 extremes and if he expect the medium/hard to be able to handle a full race distance if the pilot go easy on it
How does it compare to everything between 2010-2016 in terms of how many laps it’s expected to last and how the performance worsens, I guess? (i.e. cliff or no)
What’s the tyre life they’re aiming for? Can it be expressed in laps per compound on a reference track like Barcelona? What’s their working window? How hot do they need to be, what’s the difference between the upper and lower limit? Do they still need to impose tyre pressure windows?
What impact has the wider tyres had on the operational side? Are they harder to make, store, transport, etc. Do all Pirelli employees now have massive biceps from carrying them?!
Since the tyres are more durable, and since there is still a mandatory tyre to be used in the races, which differences will there be between compounds, what benefits will a team have in going for a harder compound for long periods of time, if that is not the fastest one? The goal of my question is to understand what factor will stop teams making the mandatory tyre change, do a couple of laps or whatever, and get back straight away to the prime tyre.
Don’t know if I made myself clear, re-reading it did sound like it, hope you understand what I’m trying to say Keith
Keith, please ask Paul if the wider tyres of this year will have a minimum inflation pressure as high as last year’s tyres or are the teams allowed to explore tyre pressures freely. Thanks
To be honest i think this is kinda expected. If Honda has truly revamped their entire design with the scrapped tokens it means they will be back at 2014 levels of reliability with an entire new package. The power might be there and they might eventually get te reliability but to expect them to be competive the first two days of testing is ridiculous.
Agree. My prediction was that they would match Mercedes’ power output of 2014 as well… and be a good 100 hp down on the nearest rival for most of the season. What I didn’t expect was this disastrous reliability… I thought maybe if they’re copying the Merc layout, they’ve understood the problems Merc encountered and thus will avoid them.
Another strong start for McLaren. It must be the new color and the naming convention. I’m glad Zak Brown successfully pinpointed the main areas for improvement.
Just back from hearing from Lance Stroll. I sure hope my voice recorder heard what he said because I could barely hear a word over the engines. Another quiet talker this one, though not in the Raikkonen league (no one is).
Keith, I’d like your take on how the cars look out on track. I watched quite a lot of fan footage last evening and the cars looked great on track. It looked like some of them, notably Sainz, were twitching and sliding all over the shop. I just finished reading a piece in Autosport which suggests that all the cars look like they are on rails and don’t look any more impressive. What are they like from what you’ve seen.
I just can’t with McLaren. With apologies to Bottas I really want Alonso to get his seat next year. Seeing one of the most talented drivers of the last 20 years stuck back there is just such a waste. Hamilton vs Alonso is this amazing rivalry we’ve actually seen on track in like 2 seasons in the last 10 years!
why should I create a headache for myself. I will take Sainz anyday instead of Alonso, with /10 costs. But I understand your frustration, but it’s what you want, not what merc want.
and what a complete waste of a super talent like Vandoorne, i believe he is as talented as Verstappen and he might kill his career in this dog of a car.
They haven’t tweeted a time that they are expecting to fix the car in, so my guess is it’s a wrap. Mechanics and Engineers are sitting around twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the idiots in Sakura to finally figure out what their problems have been over the past 2 days.
Has anyone spotted that double T bar on the Williams, one comes from the top edge of the shark fin like Ferrari and the second seems to attach somewhere above the exhaust exit? looks to be flexing massively in the picture.
Mercedes is doing a race simulation on day two.. That’s far more impressive than the times itself. But fingers crossed that Ferrari is closer to Mercedes this year. Hamilton vs Vettel would be amazing.
Considering that Toto has said that most of the parts on the car will not feature in Melbourne, I imagine they are probably not pushing that hard. First days of the test is usually systems checks, tuning the engine, comparing with dyno/wind tunnel results.
Well there’s no way we’ve seen anything like a qualifying lap, which is where the bulk of Mercedes’ advantage lies. A key question will be whether Ferrari or Renault can approach the kind of performance they have there. Keep in mind last year Ferrari were quickest after testing. That alone suggests a margin of error in the order of a full second. But remember also Renault brought a big engine upgrade after just a few races and that was when Red Bull became contenders for victory. So I wouldn’t write off any of the top three at this point.
@Keith I cannot agree more, but also last year Mercedes was using Mediums the whole time, so comparison is more difficult. This year Ferrari actually beats Mercedes’ time on slower tyres, which can mean everything or nothing, but still something to keep hope alive for this season.
Ferrari fans might find some comfort in the fact that Kimi was fastest in a set of soft tyres, while the mercs did their best laps in sets of ultra soft
I don’t think speeds and lap times are a fair indication of speed just yet. A lot of teams might still be doing evaluations and similar programs. Ask a McLaren fan who might say that they’d be pleased just to see the car run.
Autosport assessment of Bottas’ race simulation: I spent a lot of Bottas’s race run watching from trackside, and it looked…messy. He had quite a bit of understeer early on when the car was heavy, and it was moving around on him in the corners.
Interesting. Rather similar to Stroll’s mistake, but apparently not a show stopper. Lucky escape! I hope this means these cars aren’t just physically more demanding to drive, but also trickier.
Paul Hembery was very generous with his time, got over a quarter of an hour on the recorder. The full Q&A, covering many of the talking points you raised, will be published here later. In the meantime a brief portion will go up shortly.
Keith I’d be interested to know where you think F1 Fanatic comes in the pecking order of other F1 (or general) media. If Paul Hembery is giving you that much time it suggests you’re quite high up. But how do the other journos treat you? Are you part of their gang or a “johnny-come-lately”?
Damn I wasn’t there to propose question for the Pirelli meeting, do anyone knows what happens at the tire end of life ? Cliff or quicker decline ? Difficult to figure out from lap times right now, not sure anyone has pushed the tire to that point.
Yeah I think you answered your own question. Sounds like the teams aren’t even running what will be their race trim of aero packaging, so, much to be determined but everything under control for now.
There’s news that they are already on their last PU for this weekend, although a new engine has been shipped from Sakura already. Today.. if the engine breaks down, they will have to call it a day
Honda is against using talent from outside the company…. because they clearly have an abundance of knowledge and expertise within their own organisation
That’s a good call, but they’ve preferred not to bring outside talent in so far. Perhaps that’s part of the problem, though, and their recent setbacks may prompt a rethink.
Always good to have a picture of myself looking gormless on my own website, here at a session with Verstappen yesterday (in case you’re wondering, I managed to get someone closer to the front to push my voice recorder in a bit further). Verstappen basically answered the same two questions about how quick is car is and how difficult overtaking will be from the various television crews:
Big day for Mc-Honda today. Last of the three engines they brought.(new one is on its way)
But according to news in Japan they will have to redesign the oil pan. Due to the higher lateral g-force, the pump is starving of oil during high speed turns which causes the engine to run dry momentarily. The sensors show low oil pressure for a second, then it comes back once the car is goin straight again. That doesn’t cause instant damage but resduces engine life dramatically and is believed to be the cause of power loss suffered yesterday.
McLaren will also have to redesign some body work to accommodate the new oil tank. Unbelievable mistake by a company that also makes MotoGP engines(albeit completely different departments)
Celis makes his first appearance in the Force India. Wonder if they’ve got one of their regular drivers on standby to take over in case he struggles? These cars are a lot more demanding than last year’s and when I saw the three of them at the launch last week Celis didn’t look nearly as built as Perez or Ocon (who did more than a race distance yesterday).
Good point. By the way, I’m amazed that Mercedes are the only ones who regularly switch their drivers after the lunch break. Would make sense for all the teams to do that: Less fatigue for the drivers, more even distribution of mileage if one of your days is rotten.
Yeah, I wonder if they could’ve put in more laps with a driver change. Any chance you’ll get a word with a Ferrari representative, or are they staying true to their ‘low profile’ approach?
Incidentally it’s a very busy day in terms of interviews today – Hamilton and Vettel among those we’re expecting to hear from. Unfortunately Ricciardo’s briefing clashes with Hamilton’s but as Hamilton is only doing one meeting with the written media I’m obviously prioritising that. Heard from Ricciardo on day one:
I thought Ricciardo and Verstappen were going to share today and tomorrow. Having only one driver get used to the new wets makes little sense, doesn’t it?
In some lights they do look quite similar. The McLaren looks a lot better than some of the launch pictures showed. I still think the livery could use a little tidying up, but it’s not as bad as some are saying.
What I really don’t get is why Renault have spoiled their lovely livery with all that extra black. From a heat rejection point of view alone it seems an odd step. I wish they’d just stick the 2010 livery back on the thing!
It wouldn’t be fair of me to answer that as I had an interesting piece of information along those lines yesterday which I’m going to share with you all shortly. Just putting the first image gallery of the day up…
A busy start for Ferrari and Mercedes so far, both already up to 20 laps. Kvyat running well too in the Toro Rosso. As you’d imagine a lot of teams doing aero runs with substantial rigs – lots of pictures of those here:
McLaren are steadily chipping away with individual runs. Alonso up to nine laps now and has just gone down the start/finish straight so might even be attempted a timed one now.
Still no sign of Stroll in the Williams though. And Palmer hasn’t reappeared in the Renault since his spin.
Grosjean is on the track today and will be doing the wet weather test tomorrow. He’s concerned the wider tyres will increase the risk of aquaplaning (and still getting greif from his team for his Brazil crash):
That concept is not as simple. If we are talking about slicks, definitely, you have a bigger area, and of course the chances of aquaplaning increase.
But wit wet weather tyres and intermediates it will depend on the grooves, their design, efficiency on moving water and not to forget that the cars have more downforce and therefore will be able to break trough the water. Also contact patch does not increases proportionally in the wet tyres as it does with slicks, once again it depends on the tyre grooves
Rosberg’s made a “celebrity” appearance in the Mercedes garage today. Do we think this will be one of several visits throughout the season to potentially play mind games with Lewis ‘from beyond the grave’ as it were?? :P
I don’t think he’ll be playing mind games. He’s probably there for genuine support. Don’t forget that he and Hamilton have known each other since karting. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see more smiles from them both now that they’re no longer competing against each other.
as Illiria mentions, Rosberg doesn’t have the need anymore for that kind of thing. I think it is really more about showing up to have a chat with the team, greet everyone, thank everyone etc. A bit of feel good for the whole team. Including Lewis
Agreed, just a tongue-in-cheek comment really. Although Rosberg’s presence would inevitably convey memories of the 2016 season for Lewis. Whether that would motivate him or distract him remains to be seen.
Keith, do you know, if someone is doing live “radio” broadcast from the tests? A la WRC Radio style? Would it be ok with FOM and there’s just not enough of interest for such thing?
Audio is also owned by the broadcasters so it’s up to them to provide this if there’s demand. I’m not allowed to – for instance, posting the audio from the interviews I’m doing would break the rules.
Keith is there any sign of concern at RBR or are they playing things close to the chest?
I get the feeling that they’re not really all that confident in either their PU or set-up as they seem to be doing minimal laps compared to Mercedes & Ferrari.
Any opinions so far on title? Imo so far….. 1- Hamilton , by a distance.(not a fan) 2- very tight between Seb, valtari, max and ricciardo(any order possible) After that – kimi Best of rest- Carlos sainz jnr
Thinking of putting decent bet on Hamilton? Anyone to talk me out of it please?
Bottas pushes the benchmark further on with a 1’20.107. The target lap time to be five seconds quicker than the 2015 Spanish GP pole time is 1’19.681, so we’re now less than half a second off that. The usual caveats about tyre types apply, of course.
At the other end of the table Bottas sets the first sub-80s lap and leaves the benchmark 0.2 seconds off the target five-second lap time improvement. He did a 1’19.838 on super-softs.
Ericsson with last year’s Ferrari engine laps 0.2s off Vettel’s time in the current Ferrari. That gives you a good idea how representative these times are.
That’s interesting, considering that they only used two different compounds during the entire pre-season testing in 2016. The only tyre they haven’t sampled yet is the hard, right?
And I note the pic Keith posted amongst today’s gallery of Nico looking at a Red Bull in the pits and thought yeah, nothing wrong with an extra set of expert eyes for Merc these days.
Vettel doing a 1:21 on the mediums earlier in the week means a 1:19 on ultrasoft by Bottas is still a conservative lap? With 4 tyres to choose from, a 2 second difference in performance between the faster and slowest options seems unlikely.
If Pirelli expect them to lap in the 1:17s on the yellow-marked soft tyres in qualifying, none of these laps are anywhere near representative. However, a 2 second difference between soft and ultrasoft doesn’t sound wrong. Keep in mind that the tarmac and layout of the Circuit de Catalunya are extremely abrasive, which makes it rather difficult to keep the ultrasoft tyre alive while pushing.
Over at autosport.com Gary Anderson seems impressed with the way the Ferrari handles corners, says it does so better than the Merc. I hope he’s right, F1 needs more than one team fighting for wins.
Races should indeed be an absolute treat if the Mercedes were to maintain (albeit reduced) its qualifying superiority but the Ferrari being the quicker car on race-day!
I know it’s too early to make any sort of rational conclusions, but it is appalling to see the McLaren being slower than the Renault or even the Sauber.
We can’t take pre season tests as conclusive, but it’s very likely that Mclaren will be battling at the back of the grid along with the Saubers come Melbourne. It’s like 2015 all over again, but this time, there isn’t a Manor to fight.. but a Sauber.
It is often more important to get consistent lap times in order to correlate the data properly. Also they may well be sandbagging while they check to see if their engine issues have gone away as there is little point in doing a fast lap and blowing the engine and therefore possibly ruining the whole test. The early tests are often used for checking systems, car characteristics and correlating the wind tunnel and simulator results. If they are still this far off the leaders come the last test day before the season starts then yes they have a problem, but right now we have no idea what tests they are running.
That is a ridiculously fast lap on soft tyres. He could break in to the 1:18s with ultrasofts on. I’m sure Mercedes are looking at his lap right now with a little bit of surprise
We’ve got a mini-race going on now. Sainz chases Ericsson down the straight, pursued by Alonso who’s just improved his time again, 1’23.146. He’s also hit the 40-lap mark.
Watching Vettel through Turn 1-3 is definitely my ‘wow’ factor of the day. The Ferrari is just planted and, even on used tyres, it doesn’t budge one millimetre off line. Gary Anderson
Yeah as the laps go on the Merc is struggling for grip the Ferrari not so much. RBR are also a little wobbly. This could be an interesting season. Ferrari are impressing.
Although now that he’s out on a fresh set of softs with less fuel, Anderson’s saying it looks a lot better round turn 3 and more stable. I think if you take any car on the grid, Ferrari included, and simulate first-stint race conditions then the car is always going to be twitchy when pushed close to the limits, despite improved aero.
Looks like he’s spun towards the inside of the circuit at the exit of turn five. That’s his third error in two days. Massa went off on day one as well, so let’s not rule out the possibility the FW40 is a bit tricky.
That might be being a bit generous to Stroll however. I asked him yesterday if he was going to leave more of a margin today due to Williams’ parts shortage:
I’m afraid not I’m only just back from a conference with Boullier and Hasegawa. I can tell you Vandoorne’s engine from yesterday has been sent back to Japan for investigation.
Ricciardo’s still third on a 1’21.153, he’s done 67 laps.
Feel like he’ll have incredible races and terrible races. Not many inbetween. Seems like the kinda who could get a shock podium one week then take out two other drivers the next
Alonso is nowhere near being able to apply the throttle through Turn 3. He has to have a big and long lift, but it’s not just to get the front end to bite, it looks like a lack of overall grip
I’m just writing up some quotes from their media session! But Alonso’s three laps off a race distance which has got to be an improvement. And these aren’t massively slow laps either, they appear to be in the ballpark. Causes for a little optimism, though it could hardly have got worse.
You beat my post Keith. Thank you. Really hoping Alonso has a better year this year. Btw Iirc the link on F1fanatic to live testing says 1st day and not 3rd. I didn’t know if that’s how you wanted it.
A further thought – the spread of times between the fastest and slowest cars at the moment is just 3.251 seconds. I reckon it’ll be way more than that in Melbourne.
Keith, don’t know if you saw my other post. The F1 Fanatic site when clicking to get to live testing, says, follow the first day and not the 3rd day. I wasn’t sure if that’s how you wanted it. I thought I’d get a rehash of the 1st days events, went looking elsewhere, eventually came back.
Are Stroll’s offs indicative of the fact these brawnier cars are more challenging to muscle around a circuit? Perhaps an inexperienced 18yo simply isn’t up to the task in this revised formula, and the ‘age-to-F1’ regression has now reached its zenith.
Well really in fairness he is a kid and he has only had a few sessions in F1…new everything…tires tricky to warm up especially when it’s been cool there…the car perhaps without all it’s new gear on…let’s give the lad a chance. And he’s not in a top 3 car.
Thanks for joining in as always guys, see you for more tomorrow. Am about to dash off to try to attend Vettel and Hamilton’s sole media briefings of the week, which are taking place within five minutes of each other…
Hamilton did 95 laps, with Bottas 75 in the morning that’s 170 laps on the day. Huge. Mercedes and Ferrari appears to be veey good. Red Bull not showing what they can do I assume.
Good morning from the Circuit de Catalunya everybody. Wet tyre testing is the plan for the morning and the track has been drenched accordingly – though I have to say it looks more like intermediate conditions and it’s the full wet weather tyres they want to test.
Took a quick stroll to Williams (pun intended) where there’s not a lot happening at the moment – last night it was unclear if they would be able to run at all today:
Asked some of the drivers yesterday how useful today’s wet weather testing would be, here’s what they had to say. Grosjean gave some very interesting detail on the problems they had in Brazil last year:
Sauber have Giovinazzi running today. Talk about in at the deep end: A few weeks ago he hadn’t driven an F1 car, now he’s driving these monsters on a wet track. Respect. He seems a nice guy too, haven’t had a chance to hear much from him yet.
Big improvement from Verstappen: 1’29.867. At this rate the afternoon running should be representative.
Should note there won’t be a ‘lap time watch’ at lunch time unless anyone improves their best times for the test so far, which seems unlikely. Speaking of which, here they are:
Sky Sports understands Mercedes have been running their 2017 engine in conservative power modes to be sure of complete reliability.
It’s not known if Mercedes have suffered engine component failures on their factory-based test dynos but a team source confirmed that failures are a desirable occurrence – the point about running engines on test beds is so that it happens close to home, where quick and accessible fixes can be applied, rather than on the track
Mercedes will introduce an upgraded engine for the season-opening Australian GP on March 26, meaning that while Bottas and Hamilton’s lap times in the W08 are already impressive, there is likely to be even more performance gains to come from the world champions –if the engine is reliable.
I really hope Ferrari and Redbull can match/beat Merc this year.
What’s the point wetting the track when so few cars are actually testing? Most of the teams seem to be waiting for the track to dry. No point to risk it in wet conditions when you don’t have spare parts? They should have specific wet tests separately in a better fitting track like Paul Ricard.
I’m pretty impressed with the competitive times put up by some of the midfield and back marking teams this year. Sauber, Haas, Force India, Toro Rosso, Renault have all posted times below the 1:22 mark on either softs or Super softs. This could either mean that the gap between the front runners and back markers isn’t all that large this year. It could also mean that Mercedes are sandbagging.
I think the top teams are keeping a lid on their performance at the moment – look at the difference between their 2017 and 2016 pace compared to the others:
The first driver past the pits is Bottas and it seems he’s kicking up quite a bit more spray than the drivers were first thing this morning. Perhaps they’ve managed to get more water down. The surface is 35C though so it’ll dry up pretty quickly I suspect.
Was the afternoon always ntended to be a wet session or just the morning? I’m wondering if, had the teams committed fully to this morning’s running, there wouldn’t have been a need for a wet start to the afternoon.
Returned from the paddock with three recordings: Grosjean, Hulkenberg and the sound of the inside of my pocket as I walked along having accidentally pressed ‘record’. Won’t bother sharing the last one with you…
However Hulkenberg and Grosjean had some interesting things to say:
Having looked around a few sites it seems there is a general consensus the teams aren’t happy about the wet test and prefer dry testing. Feels like a bit of a poor response after all the general moaning about the quality of the wet weather tyres. What are the FIA and Pirelli supposed to do exactly?
Agreed. Supporting Alonso now is like supporting Timo Glock or Heikki Kovalainen five or six years ago….. skillful drivers confined to horribly bad cars. I’m jumping on the Mad Max bandwagon for 2017, but let’s see what Alonso does eh
This year’s F1 season still has four world champs now that Button is not racing; my favorite is Alonso, no doubt. It is hard to wake up so early to watch many races to see the McL so far from the lead and Alonso in -I guess- such dispair for not being able to challenge. If I think of supporting someone else I wouldn’t like VET or HAM to win again; I’d rather see RAI go for the second one or even VERS win the first one. For the future, SAINZ jr., another great pilot lacking a good car.
The track is drying out again, lap times still in the high thirties. The frustration for teams will be they’re nowhere near the performance level at which they can carry out most useful tests. Cooling, for example, will be nowhere near the limit at the moment.
Whilst I doubt the MCL32 is a championship contender, writing them off today is a bit rash. After their oil tank issues on days 1 and 2 they are effectively only on their second test day and likely haven’t done any performance runs yet. I suspect it will be left for the next test to turn the wick up and even then it’ll be on high fuel so I would say down be too down trodden to the Alonso fans. He might just pull a few rabbits out of hats this year. If anyone can its him.
One hour left in the first test. We’re still waiting to see if Sainz will appear and if any team will improve on their best time so far. Force India are closest – just 0.025s away.
Same here. Renault (in the sun) is much more orange than expected. BTW the FI looks a lot better than expected (nose doesn’t bother me in the wild). And Sauber looks like STR, at least what I expected the STR to look like.
Welcome back for week to everyone! Will is at the Circuit de Catalunya for F1 Fanatic today keeping an eye on proceedings and bringing us the latest from the paddock.
The test is due to begin in just over an hour. Here’s the driver line-up for today and the rest of the week:
Obviously big pressure on Stroll to keep it out of the barriers after last week. But it’s easy to forget that before his prang on Thursday he’d logged the thick end of 100 laps.
I wish I knew. Perhaps the Formula 1 Machines of Today are too complicated for them. It’s certain that Mclaren will ditch them if they don’t show Progress for a third straight year.
They misunderstood the regulations and thought the engines could only be tested at test days. If only they knew they could run them in the factory to check their oil system and for leaks.
Honda hired Gilles Simon – a famous engineer who worked with Renault and Ferrari at their engine departments – to get some help when building their engine. Honda didn’t listen to Gilles at all, that’s why he left. I assume Honda thinks that they can build the best engine themselves. That’s overconfidence that doesn’t (and won’t) pay off.
It’s definitely be tyre-related. They may be interested in the quality of the contact patch with the ground and how well the suspension is working. These new tyres are huge, and ensuring consistent contact with the ground across their full width is important.
No the number of laps are limited by distance. It’ll be the minimum number of laps to make 305km at every circuit bar Monaco, where it’s 260km. (It’s about time they brought Monaco into line with the others I think).
I think it started out as being 200 miles and one way or another it sort of slipped to where it is now. There may be a better explanation though, I’ll try to find out.
305Km is approximately 1,000,000 feet, not sure if that has any significance historically. I thought it was originally 300Km +1lap which was changed to completed 305km which is much the same.
I don’t think it ever had anything to do with miles, since the Grand Prix sport originated in France. I don’t know why they chose 305 km, but historically a race had to be at least 500 km long to be a Grand Prix. This minimum distance was shortened to 300 km in 1950 in order to enable Monaco to hold a Grand Prix. I don’t know when or why they increased the distance to 305 km, though. I’ve read theories that this corresponds to 1,000,000 feet (304.8 km), but again: This would be ahistorical, since the roots of F1 lie in France, where the ‘imperial’ system (derived from the measurements used in the Roman Empire; i.e. not identical to the measurements used in the imperial system) was abolished after the French Revolution in the 1790s. Also, the use of a non-metric system is a very peculiar archaism of the former British Empire. The rest of the world has been almost exclusively using the metric system for centuries.
Another explanation I’ve found is that 305 km were originally meant to be 300 km + another full lap. I think this sounds reasonably plausible, but I couldn’t find any reliable sources that back this claim up.
Also, there’s recurring talk (not by officials) of shortening the race distance to make races more exciting. I’ve never heard anyone requesting the opposite.
The race length is defined as the smallest number of complete laps that exceeds 305 kilometers (the Monaco Grand Prix is the sole exception with a race length of 78 laps / 260.5 km)
I was referring to the first line not appearing on my screen, but now i see it…
Not really, the long stint pace of RB was equal last week and Ferrari was better. I understand the desire everyone has not to get optimistic and be let down but it will be closer this season.
So McLaren have a decent enough chassis (although car does look twitchy) again but let down by Honda. Wow, Ferrari, their pace on mediums is so impressive.
I’d be chuffed if the car turns out to be competitive, because I was seriously annoyed by the flood of negativity Williams received when they first presented their car. For a lot of people, it was a foregone conclusion that Williams will finish 9th or lower, before the car had even completed a single lap. I’ll have a good laugh if reality has other plans.
Sorry to report that StoffelROFL has been stuck in the garage for the last 2 hours with a problem. He’s about 15-20 laps down on the mileage for the day.
What kind of problem? WHO CAN TELL? I hear it rhymes with Zonda.
Another engine replacement on the Mclaren. Honda are still investigating the issue… along with their investigations of last week… and of course the last 2 years list of pending investigations.
That’s 6 power units in 5 days of testing. Surely, they’re gunning for some sort of record
Sky reporting that McLaren have another engine problem. Hence there lack of action for the last 2 odd hours and are unlikely to be seen for at least another couple of hours.
What a disaster. It can’t continue, surely they should go crawling back to Merc.
Focusing on their race pace, checking their aero at more constant speeds, checking all their engine systems before they turn the thing up and therefore looking for the more consistent running provided by the harder compounds.
So, after Newey’s assertion that they’d start ramping up the complexity of the RB13’s aero as they came to understand their base, is the RB13 much different at this test? Any news on that front?
Its really becoming an annoying trend.Honda are on their 3rd year and they have gone backwards instead of forwards.Perhaps it is time they pull the plug and talk with a serious manufacturer.
It’s pretty unfortunate at this point. McLaren hitches their wagon to one of the worlds biggest car manufacturers and it’s Honda that end up being the problem.
It’s so frustrating, we have no idea what the quality of the chassis is. I wonder what they can do? Phone BMW? Audi? Audi developed pretty sexy engines for their LMP1 cars. Uuuughghghghghghhh
Also, they are not getting a good sponsor running like this. The whole programme is in crisis.
Hello Keith. Do you by any chance have a chart with the lap times for Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull. It would be nice to compare their long ran stints.
Long answer: At present the only way to get this information would be to have someone sat in the media centre nine hours a day writing every lap time down. I don’t think that’s the best use of the costs involved of attending these tests which is why we don’t do it. Particularly when we’re talking about under-developed cars on a green and cold track, running tyres which may not even be used for this race. And all the usual other caveats regarding fuel loads would apply too. The amount of work involved doesn’t make sense for the very limited relevance of the data gathered.
@zisis, @keithcollantine, on twitter there is the @f1debrief account who does a very good job of posting stints for drivers; I don’t know if it is the full data, but it gets close, I think.
I appreciate the suggestion but I’m not going to trust something from an anonymous and unverified source. Besides which Pirelli do publish this information at the end of this test (and it was reported here).
Ferrari’s testing reminds me of Merc’s testing last year. Just run on the mediums forever and ever. And come Australia, don’t sample mediums at all during practice or qualifying but put them on after the stoppage and go win a 1-2.
I mean gaaawwwddd, it’s so depressing. I’ve always had a soft spot for McLaren and I may not be totally unbiased but this is embarrassing for the sport. The second great mark of the sports whole history is a total mess with no end in sight.
I wonder if there’s a new supplier they can go to. Merc engines again?
It wasn’t embarrassing in 2013 when the rot started, teams have off years. It wasn’t too bad in 2014, a new project was in the offing, they were prepping for that, in 2015 it was understandable, brand new supplier but it looked very bad, in 2016 it was just sad to see Button and Alonso wasted and it had to be fixed imminently.
This year? To see them actually go backwards? It’s cripplingly embarressing for Honda, very bad for McLaren and pretty an ugly look for a sport that needs better teams to improve it’s competition.
For the last 3 years, there hasn’t been a competition. It’s been an intermural practice between Mercs two drivers. The word for this isn’t embarrassment perhaps, it’s certainly not good.
They started in 2015, got MUCH better in 2016, and in 2017 we do not know their speed yet. You are judging on 4.5 days testing and not in season pace.
McLarens in season car development last season was superb, no reason why it wont happen again. Once the reliability issues have been identified, the cars full performance can be pushed in the 2nd half of the season.
Their in season development was nothing spectacular.. they were more competitive in Monaco, Barcelona and Canada than they were later on at Brazil and Abu Dhabi.
As I’ve mentioned before, when you start at ground zero, anything can be considered progress. It in no signifies that Mclaren have the ability to catch up on front runners.
Nah, thinking logically the cars are covering the same distance, but quicker. The distance covered dictates the potential for interactions and covering the distance quicker merely changes the speed at which they occur relative to one another.
Take last year, not a lot happened in some races and a lot happened in others. If they where driving cars that where 5 seconds faster and everything else remained the same it would have been the same season, compressed.
Action happening with smaller interludes of no action creates the impression that more happened.
Good thing!
(Not saying this year is going to be good though, the other thing that’s changes is those cars are going to be pumping out massive wakes, certainly a bad thing)
Looking at the whole test so far, the gap between the fastest car and the slowest is just 2.8 seconds. I’d be amazed if it’s that low once the season begins. It could easily be twice as much. To me this is an indication the cars are still well within their potential.
Its a farce, Honda is really in my view really hurting their reputation, they just can not sort it out, a problem with baffles in the oil tank, maybe causing oil starvation, hence engine out, now second test and more problems. ML should just full stop work, be done with Honda and work to be back by third GP with any of the existing suppliers, hell at this point ask for a 2016 Ferrari engine and rely on your chassis know how to get in the points
Personally Im tired of waiting for Honda to get their act together.It would have been a different matter if they were fast but unreliable keeping the progress from last year but now they have gone backwards.This new Honda is unregognisable and clearly a disgrace to the Historical partnership that holds the record of 15/16 GP. Either they bring a fast engine in Melbourne or Mclaren should seriously go back to Mercedes. Mclaren fans cannot wait anymore. 17 years without a championship.
i think Mclaren will never go back to mercedes, also they team-up with BMW for road-engine i can see a possible future F1 partnership with BMW than anything else
Yes but is BMW ready for F1? Just like Honda they were away from F1 for a long time though I cannot forget the Williams BMW of the 2000s with the fantastic top speed.
True maybe they are not ready or interested for F1….. but they could run a F1 project and we don’t know that…. few years back and even last years there was rumors about AUDI running a project for F1… but like i said was only rumors…. will be exiting to see them back again
Could they do worse? The only positive thing Honda has done in F1 for years was to create the double-diffuser but even then, they managed to mess it up and quit the sport before they got to see it on track.
So far this millennium, Honda have made Pirelli look professional….
yeah Renault and Mercedes could be the answer but i can’t see Mclaren going back to Mercedes and about Renault i don’t know red bull could not be happy about it………one thing for sure is Mclaren are not seen the light at the end of the tunnel yet
BMW won’t be interested. They will invest more in EV tech. F1 is seen by most manufactures as obsolete sport now. Unless Brown brings new exciting rules or regulations.
What’s the current record for most laps per day by a single driver? Massa and Vettel are approaching two race distances with plenty of time left to increase their tally.
Fascinating stuff from Boullier in his briefing to the media earlier today, which Will was at. He says their relationship with Honda is under “maximum” strain at the moment:
It’s hard to see any new manufacturers coming in until the regulations change simply because they’d be so far behind.
Besides which, BMW have said they’re not interested and Audi have just canned their WEC programme because VAG need to save a fortune to pay for dieselgate.
And even if they accepted being a customer team again, who’s to say Mercedes would agree to supply them? Like Red Bull, they would surely threaten to be too competitive…
Not so sure if other teams would think of Mclaren as being “too competitive”, DEFINITELY not in the league of Red Bull.
2013 and 2014 showed that Mclaren wasn’t the top Mercedes customer team. 2015 and 2016 don’t show the relative greatness of Mercedes chassis as Mclaren are the only one using Honda engine In 2016, team bosses went on record saying that Toro Rosso had the weakest engine but Toro Rosso was still fighting tooth and nail with Honda. Implying that the Mclaren chassis was definitely not “too competitive” but at par or below the Toro Rosso chassis.
It is pretty dramatic to see McL with no main sponsor, with an engine partner that cannot put together a package drivers can go all out with after three years, both companies having spent huge amounts of money and leaving their sponsors and fans (not to say the drivers) with the feeling that once again they have a full year ahead until getting any kind of decent result. In a normal company that would be a shutdown, sale or drastic change of direction, at least.
Not only dramatic but bad for the sport. F1 is nothing without the big battles of Mclaren Ferrari and Williams. Nobody cares about the rest. These are the most important teams and those who dominate the sport.
Massa and Vettel comfortably over 700 km each, Massa returned to the pits after 760 km, giving Vettel a chance to catch up in the remaining 15 minutes. Impressive stuff. I didn’t expect such mileages, but the drivers are obviously well prepared.
… and the red flag stops them after 167 laps, or 777 km, each. They fall just short of Mercedes’ record-breaking 170 laps from Day 3, but they improve Vettel’s individual record of 139 laps (achieved on the same day) by almost half a race distance. Things are looking pretty good for Ferrari and Williams in terms of stamina and reliability.
The only good thing I have seen from Mclaren in those test sessions is the fact that the engine is not the one that they will bring in Australia. I keep my fingers crossed that the race engine will be superior and trouble free.
I though I read somewhere the abbreviation was kept safe for the drives for 3 years, so it only became available now.
To me this makes sense, sort of… I guess the personal numbers of nowadays are also kept safe. I imagine some will maybe be retired for good along with the pilots (thinking of Rossi’s 46 there).
Don’t get me started on ‘retiring’ numbers! What a silly idea.
Well the R kind ais silent in Verstappen so Ves makes more sense
The problem was that Verge stayed as reserve driver at Ferrari – as result VER was still occupied when Verstappen joined F1. As Verge no longer is reserve driver at Ferrari the abbreviation VER became available.
Some dedicated fans have unfurled what appears to be about an 80 metre long ‘#GoMax’ banner along the guardrail of the grandstand opposite the pitlane.
So far, Bottas has covered the most laps (30) then; Massa (28) Verstappen (25) Wehrlein (20) Grosjean (17) Perez (16) Raikkonen (15) Hulkenberg (13) Alonso (9) Sainz (5)
I’m guessing there are problems in the Mclaren garage again. If there aren’t any problems, then it looks even more ridiculous that Alonso has put in only one timed lap which is 14 seconds off the pace he should be doing.
And that’s the first time the five second benchmark time has been beaten (1’19.681). Worth nothing super softs are unlikely to be used at this year’s Spanish Grand Prix, though, and the weather conditions will be a lot warmer. But even so it’s a sign of progress.
There’s a lot of talk about Mc Laren and Sauber are more or less surviving so going around slowly is ok… But what’s up with Toro Rosso ? Their car looked pretty sleak, they have a 2017 engine…. Any information ?
True. Haas might be saved from second season syndrom due to Renault engine lagging (still they don’t seem to have the same step in performance as other cars). Renault (team) seem to be doing ok though. Force India seem also quite far from n°4 potential. Never mind, it’s only testing.
It’s nice to be able to talk about the cars getting properly quicker, at least. But I wonder how much quicker they can get before we start to hear talk about them being too quick. It didn’t take long in the WRC…
A quick look at the driver mileage chart: Bottas has covered the most so far, followed by Vettel, they’re the only two drivers to have passed 2,000 kilometres. Bottas has done seven race distances in five-and-a-half days of testing!
Out of the regular race drivers it’s no surprise to see Wehrlein at the bottom (428km) followed by Stroll (512km). Massa has now done almost three times as much running as his young team mate.
Everyone wrote them off when launch pictures of their car were released, it would be a fantasy story cone true if Massa came out of retirement and won the title.
Also interesting to note that for all McLaren’s problems it’s Toro Rosso who’ve covered the fewest laps so far. The car looks great when it’s on track but it could do with spending more time there.
They’ve done the most laps of any team with a Renault engine. Suspect that’s related to the answer. I think they’ve been reliability-limited. They do always tend to give very little away in testing, but I think it’s more than that.
I agree. Although yesterday they claimed to have fixed all little niggles over the weekend and the only reason they drove relatively few yesterday was because Ricciardo had a few spins that required some repairs…
Red Bull fixing their niggles is one thing, Renault fixing theirs is another. It’s a bit like the number of times Boullier said “ask Honda” when queried about McLaren’s reliability problems yesterday!
So did FI have a trouble free morning? Below I see talk of how McLaren still has issues, which somewhat masks the issues Renault teams, and especially Torro Rosso have been having, but in the 1st week, and yesterday, FI also weren’t impressive – has that changed today?
Except if MercedesGP have been rumbled mixing oil into the fuel perhaps the non-works Mercs powered teams can get closer :D
A lot of people, myself included, suspect the times we’ve seen so far are nowhere near what the cars can actually do right now. With that in mind let’s make a realistic assumption and see where it gets us.
Last year Williams were just under 1.7% slower than Mercedes on average. It would be a surprise if they’re closer than that this year for two reasons. They have the same engine, so they can’t gain any ground there. And Mercedes have a much larger team with far greater resources to explore the potential of the relaxed aerodynamic rules. If Williams have just kept pace with Mercedes’ rate of development and are still 1.7% behind, that will have been a good winter’s work for them.
So if we assume Williams are at least as far behind Mercedes as they were last year, what kind of times can Mercedes do? Williams has set a best of 1’19.420, just a tenth off Mercedes. But if that 1.7% gap is still there, Mercedes can get down to a 1’18.0.
I mostly agree with your analysis, as a lap time of 1:18.0 sounds feasible. On the other hand, I don’t think Williams have shown 100% yet, and if they do have more performance in hand, those 1.7% become increasingly difficult to achieve. I don’t think that a 1.7% gap is some kind of soft limit for Williams. The 2016 Williams was their weakest creation under the old aero regulations, whereas Mercedes and Red Bull achieved a breakthrough that resulted in massive performance gains. These gains might have vanished under the new regulations, potentially allowing Williams to start the season quite a bit closer to Mercedes even with an undeniably much smaller development budget. Mercedes will probably use that budget to increase their advantage during the season, but I think it’s quite possible that they haven’t reached a development stage where their concept is vastly superior to most other cars.
Do you mean they’re changing the engine in Alonso’s car right now, or that they’re waiting for a new specification engine with a fix for their recent problems? The latter is already known and was reported yesterday:
Any indication on how long a competitive racing pitstop will take with these larger tyres and cars? Is there any complications from the front wings etc that will make a racing change harder?
Suspect they’ll lose a few tenths from the added weight of moving the tyres. It’ll be even more critical for drivers to stop on their marks accurately, again because of the added weight of lining everything up if they don’t.
I recall having read an article about that last week (from Williams perhaps?) – the size of the tyres will apparently be more an issue with maneuvering them than the weight, and with the nuts deeper inside, will be harder to operate the wheel guns.
They’re eighth out of ten on the mileage table at the moment, only McLaren and Toro Rosso below them. The Renault engine may be a step forward but it’s not doing the distances needed yet.
least amount of laps of any team during the morning (27), but still kind of okayish; reports that the b-spec engine just arrived at the track and is currently being fitted to the car.
Looking at how long took them yesterday to swap the engine (stop the car at 10am and got back on track just before 4pm) I will be really surprise if they run anymore today
Hopefully in the last 2 days we see some long runs from the engine without issues. Mclaren deserve to be with the top three battling for podiums and wins not trying to get a point or 2. Have to wait and see but the light at the end of the tunnel seems still far away.
Worth noting this year’s engines need to cover five grands prix between changes to avoid penalties. That’s 1,525km in the races alone, never mind qualifying and practice. Some teams haven’t done that much yet over six days, and they’ve had engine changes too. Mercedes and Ferrari have already done more than twice that much.
Alonso got a few days in the hospital in what appeared to be a minor crash… some claim he got an electric shock…so yeah they should overreact in those situations no matter how little the incident looks like..in my opinion every second count
When Hamilton does his 18th lap today Mercedes will have reached 4,000 kilometres of pre-season testing. Ferrari are next-best, they started the day just over 3,200km.
As you’d expect McLaren is at the bottom of the pile on 1,550km. Alonso said yesterday: “We’re not fully ready to complete a race distance at the moment, and we’re only two weeks away from the first race.”
Keith, do you remember if they completed a race distance in pre season testing in 2015. I remember that they had longer stints in 2015 than they do this year. I believe their longest stint this year in pre season testing has been lesser than 20 laps.
As things are still warming up… What really happened at McLaren behind the curtains, with the exit of Dennis and the recently hired Capito ? I don’t anything about Formula 1 politics, but seems to me there was obviously a power struggle. We all know the problem Dennis had with some major investors, but on the Formula 1 side, looking at how Capito was out without even practical having time to “begin”, means that internal politics ousted him. I always thought there was a conflict in both Boullier and Capito having similar jobs, albeit with different names, in the structure. Everyone seems to be fighting for their jobs in that team. Why haven’t we heard any sacking rumours for Boullier? Maybe that was what Dennis wanted to do?
Capito was definitely a Dennis hire which is why he was straight out of the door afterwards. Boullier had been brought in a while earlier. I haven’t read anyone claiming to know the inner workings of the board but I think it’s significant that many long-term McLaren sponsors have gone in recent years such as Boss and TAG. These were names which came in the early Dennis glory years. How have they become alienated from the team? That will have factored in the board’s loss of faith in Dennis I’m quite sure. It may well be more that than the team’s recent lack of results, because the strategy of teaming up with a manufacturer does make sense, Honda’s problems aside.
Definitely, the McLaren-Honda partnership makes sense and going “costumer”doesn’t make much sense if one is to compete for constructors and drivers titles. Red Bull is a bit of a different situation with their history with Renault, and I would say Williams is the best case scenario I would envision a costumer relationship with an engine supplier would take McLaren to. But there should be something fundamentally wrong not only on Honda’s side for these developments. While this is McLaren Honda, its fundamentally McLaren the Manufacturer responsible overall to make everything come together. I can’t help but think there was a big reason for Dennis to hire Capito.
Alonso’s quotes about Honda yesterday made the headlines but he had a lot of other interesting points to make as well. Here’s everything he had to say:
A bit more perspective on that. At the Spanish Grand Prix last year the slowest car was 4.57% off the pace. So far in testing the slowest car is 3.4% off the pace. Given that we’re expecting to see a larger gap between the front and the back, it’s another sign the front-runners are operating well within their potential.
Why is everyone expecting the gap to be bigger this year? Last year the backmarkers where two teams that barely made it to the starting grid and then teams like McLaren and Renault figuring new stuff out and taking an off year. Only McLaren seems to be struggeling like last year so i fully expect the backmarkers being more competive this year.
Stroll isn’t setting the timing screens alight, but he is ticking off the laps in a similar fashion to Felipe Massa was over the first two days.
He definitely needs more time in the car and less time with whoever’s doing his media training. Trying to get him to say anything remotely interesting is tricky. It’s a shame because I’ve read past interviews with him where he’s been interesting and candid. But he seems to be another rookie who’s caught the F1 disease of speaking in press releases.
Boullier, Alonso and McLaren’s press office have answered quite a few questions in the past week by saying “ask Honda”. I don’t think it’s too cynical to conclude Honda don’t want to be asked.
Meanwhile, we haven’t heard back about the cause of that ‘original’ Vandoorne day2 engine failure – either it’s bad, or they don’t know yet (also bad) so that’s probably playing into it too.
last year Mercedes fastest preseason lap was 7tenths slower than Ferraris, then in melbourne they are 4tenths quicker than Ferrari. If we take their sandbagging into account Ferrari is still need to optimise their setup and improve their engine. Dont they?
They are breaking into 1:18s on SS as Vettel backed off by about 0.7 seconds in S3 on the 1:19.314 lap.. evidenced by the fact that the next lap’s S3 was 0.7 seconds faster (total time was 1:19.4xx).
Yeah, that’s twice now Ferrari has been purple in sectors one and two, only for Vettel to lift off out of the final corner and audibly coast to the line.
red mist seeing Ferrari post those times while he’s stuck waiting for his front floor to keep sticking to his car? I liked more yellow better, but oh well.
Feels like Ferrari don’t want a repeat of last year when they were fastest in testing and didn’t produce during the season. Lower expectations and keep something behind for when they need it.
Something worrying about Force India requiring their drivers to slim down (as reported by AMuS). What if it comes at cost of the muscle needed to last a race distance.
It seems inherently, the Ferrari has outright pace. That said, I remember the W04 had inherent one lap pace but chewed the tyres leading to not so impressive race pace. Or the 2012 Ferrari which was slow in qualy but electric in the races. Qualifying pace is one thing, race pace quite another.
For F1 history fans, during the lunch break we’re going to have the first in our series on the 1997 season. We’ll be doing a piece on every race from this classic season, which had some interesting parallels with this one, throughout the rest of the year.
It hasn’t been a seamless start to the 2017 season for last year’s ‘best of the rest’ Force India, with the team looking like a middle-of-the-pack team so far.
On top of balance and exhaust issues, Auto Motor und Sport report that the VJM10 is 10 kiograms too heavy. That comes down to the bigger-than-expected new Mercedes engine, and the fact that both Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon have increased muscle mass.
“We told them that they can only weigh 70 kilos in Melbourne,” technical director Andrew Green said.
Because of this extra weight, it is claimed that Force India will not be running any qualification sims in Barcelona.
Valtteri Bottas has taken over from Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes, while Felipe Massa has the Williams at his disposal after Lance Stroll’s 85 laps this morning.
Some of the hype which is being posted about the lap times is very silly. Apparently Ferrari have “blistering Barcelona pace”. They’re 0.286 seconds faster than the next car (Mercedes).
They may well be quickest and if they are good for them. But hype like this gets very wearisome. We had it last year when Ferrari were also quickest in testing. Their advantage 12 months ago was 0.257s – just a few hundredths less than it is right now.
So to start talking them up to extent some people are is ridiculous. And it will only fuel the sense of disappointment if they turn up to the first race and Mercedes are still the best part of a second ahead.
Well said Keith, every lap time during testing should be taken with a pinch of salt. To me the standout lap so far was Hamilton’s 1:20.4 yesterday on soft tyres and at least 16 laps worth of fuel.
My hype over Ferrari is from people at the tracks (such as Ben Anderson from Autosport) who are saying that not only is Ferrari faster, but looks much more stable and planted through the corners.
Karun Chandock said that at corner 5 Mercedes driveability still seems to be the best, but Ferrari.and Merc are miles better than others through corners 3,4,5 .
Strange seeing this post from your Keith. If the new members are indeed looking at absolute lap times and thinking Ferrari is the fastest, they will get their answer in the first race.
Or maybe Ferrari are indeed faster and it is what is seen in the tests.
Ah! ok. I know that Gary has been crowing from the top about Ferrari this year.
Makes me think, if they did end up using a similar testing method as last year, it still means Ferrari did a good job this year and Merc are a lil’ worse this year.
Since last year it was all about how the Merc was a spaceship while the Ferrari looked good but lil’ nervous around the corners, not able to gracefully ride the kerbs etc.
Sauber becomes the third team to pass the 3,000km mark. They tend to go for high mileages in testing, of course they don’t have a simulator so they can’t do as much work back at base. And using a year-old engine should ensure good reliability early on.
Good afternoon everybody. Can’t follow the test as I did last year, so thank you all for feeding in the info. And Will for the great insight over at the circuit
In other news, it seems that the McLaren has an electical issue today. Anyone knows if there is at least one component that works properly on that PU?
not all of them I think. The Ferrari engine does work that way (at least last year’s did). Don’t know if the other manufacturers have decided to implement that feature
I put this into a chart and it’s very interesting. Vettel and Bottas even until around lap 10 when Vettel starting to drop off his pace, whereas Bottas remained consistent throughout. Ricciardo very consistent, about 1-2 seconds slower than both Bottas and Vettel.
Worth noting of course that Vettel is on the medium tyre, which makes his drop off after lap 10 questionable. Still consistently faster than the RBR however, although the number of laps suggests RBR could be much more heavily fuelled.
Need to know the comparative age of the tyres to draw a meaningful comparison between them, the Mediums might have another stint on them and they are merely seeing where the “cliff” is
Just processing another (!) batch of images from the track. For those keeping count we’re going to be in the region of 1,500 pictures from the launches and tests so far.
Remember you can always find the very newest pictures that have been added to F1 Fanatic here:
As Hulk mentioned, it helps keep fresh better. The driver does the job for half a day full out, then can relax and be fit for the next day. You can get more out of it that way.
This is the point in testing where I’m sick of the hype and just want to get on with the first race already! Hopefully we’ll at least get to see some interesting new aero bits today.
Hopefully some on the edge flying laps this time… Are you going to write an article about your opinions of each car and the current “order”, Keith? looking forward to your input!
Hulkenberg uses super softs to set Renault’s best time of testing. They’re just 0.001s behind Haas’s team best, which puts them eighth out of the teams.
Looks like Williams have let Stroll off the leash a bit today. Suspect he was told very firmly yesterday to get the mileage done and keep it out of the barriers.
Massa’s lap times were just as slow yesterday. I think they simply ran a completely different programme. I’m pretty sure they did tell Stroll to get his act together after last week, but seeing as that didn’t stop him from posting (relatively) fast lap times on Wednesday, it’s pretty unlikely that that was the reason for his slow pace.
Thats not how engineering works however. If its unreliable its also slow. You dont increase the power on an engine that has failures you dont understand after 20laps.
That’s a really good time. With the US, it could easily be a low 1:18s. That would mean faster than the theoretical time set by Seb yesterday (1:18.7xx)
They must go back to Mercedes. It’s clear that Honda does not have any intention to get their act together. 3 Years and they have clearly shown no Progress.
The point is that although they’d be faster than they are now, they would be too dependent on Merc for their liking. For example, apparently FI has weight issues because Merc lengthened the gearbox and they had to adapt.
Not sure if it’s even true, but they point is of course Mercedes will build the engine first and foremost for their car, not their customers.
McLaren wants to have the same relationship with Honda, and I can 100% agree that it’s the right idea to beat the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes instead of being dependent on them.
They only thing is of course it’s not working out because the Honda engine is a piece of ….
True but McLaren is no strager to Mercedes and had to act cause this situation is terrible. Look at RBR being good only their engine is not that great (Renault), McLaren know how to build good chassis but they lack a good engine so going back to Mercedes is the best option IMO
Long term not so much because Merc will always be better at being Merc than Williams, FI and McLaren.
McLaren weren’t satisfied with being a better Williams or FI, they wanted to be a long term championship contender. However, it’s quite obviously not working out. At all. The thing is, if they give up on their long term idea and go back to another engine supplier, where do they go from there?
If I remember correct Mercedes had the same problems back in 2010 and needed 4 years to be a Top winning team but you could see every year making Progress. Honda hasn’t shown any Progress at all which is unnaceptable for one of the best manufacturers worldwide, not to mention their good past in terms of engines since the teams they worked with had the best results with their engines (Championships with Williams, Mclaren, 1999 Jordan Honda 3rd in the Championship, Prost Honda having their best finishes, BAR Honda). Their performance is unnaceptable today. Mclaren has to do something. Either they get their shit together and deliver in record time of 1 or 2 GP an engine that is close to the Top and reliable or remove themselves from F1 and stop torturing Mclaren with their amateurish ways.
Mclaren needs to arrange a similar relationship with Mercedes as Red Bull did with Renault. I’m sure it will be more difficult to arrange as Mercedes’ works team is in a different league as compared to Renault…. but they will have to try and at least become Mercedes’ #1 customer team to stand a chance of even reaching the podium. With Honda, the best they can aim for is making it in to Q3.
Not sure you can say they have no intention to get their act together, the Japanese have a very proud culture and don’t like to be embarrassed publically (more so than most other cultures) so this would be hurting Honda greatly. If they can actually get it together, well maybe that’s another story- I hope they do!
Lovely though it would be to have Ferrari, Mercedes, Williams and Red Bull all covered by half a second as they are at the moment (on combined times) it’s surely not going to be the case!
The average Honda engine lasts 30 laps. At this rate, they will need to supply 4 race engines per driver every race weekend. So that’s approximately 160 power units for an entire season!
It’s painful to be a McLaren fan these days. :( I just hope it’s like the early days with Mercedes power and Honda will get on top of the problems after 3 seasons.
I started watching F1 around 1996-97, and I don’t remember them being massively handicapped with a Mercedes engine ever. Sure, it wasn’t as reliable as the Ferrari and Renault, but it could match them in performance pretty often.
At no point would I say that Mercedes had severely handicapped Mclaren. Honda on the other hand has literally made Mclaren a back marker.
Agreed, Mercedes always had performance even if they didn’t have reliability. Honda have not produced a good engine in some time. Their V8 engine was not good, deemed as heavy, not fuel efficient and peaky in its not so impressive power. The last competitive engine they produced was in the V10 era.
McLaren though have little in the way of alternative options. It is very unlikely that Mercedes or Ferrari would give them an engine. Their original point is still valid, you are unlikely to win a championship as a customer engine team. However Honda really need to get some help in and listen to it!
I hope that they take a new engine partner for next season. They may have their faults, but, McLaren don’t deserve to be grinding for 9th, possibly 8th…
I just hope they had about half a tank of fuel aboard, otherwise come race weekend in Melbourne and everyone turns up their engines and they’ll be sorry they got everyone’s hopes up.
Should be possible. I think Red Bull is going to have a hard time matching that pace. Although it’s impossible to say what is going to happen in Australia, I do think Ferrari and Mercedes will have the upper hand.
Here’s today’s updated Lap Time Watch. Raikkonen’s lap today means F1 is now six seconds faster than the pole position time for the 2015 Spanish Grand Prix, one second quicker than was targeted:
Well i would assume they are 1 second or more quicker because of development and the rulechange is maybe adding another 5sec to that so its all in order. Maybe they didnt expect the teams making such huge improvements on their own.
Ferrari have made the fastest times on super softs and softs and mediums by over half a second if my calculations are correct. online comments from press at the circuit says they are the most stable car out there also. I think at the moment Mercedes only has enough to nearly match Ferrari. should be a great season. Redbull have not got much aero on their car yet, and are setting up a perfect base with their car to install quick aero upgrades. I think Ferrari v merc up to the Monaco gp, and then Redbull come to the fight.
you really need to wait Melbourne before trying any conclusion, Mercedes in per-season are never very fast and then BOOM they pull a second out of the bag……
Why not? It’s the last day of testing? You don’t sandbag, then turn the car up to max at Melbourne and something breaks there…. that would be lunacy. Personally, I would put Ferrari and Merc about level going into the first race.
Why would they? if you lift on top speed on one of the straights you get to test everything and not reveal to the rest what times you can achieve, but still easily calculate them. Everybody’s hiding something, it’s what makes it exciting.
these cars should break f1 record lap times, but I they are 100kg heavier than the old 600kg cars, so they should be quite physical on the drivers. I wonder about the g forces on some hot days at some tracks…
Physically Singapore seems to be the hardest on the drivers as is so humid, but not a high G force circuit, so it will be interesting so see at what tracks they struggle and who done their gym work, as opposed to posting photos at the gym :)
Likely the race in Malaysia as it’s a high G track with plenty of high speed corners and hard deceleration zones plus the usual hot and humid conditions. That should be a real test of driver stamina his year!
Yes good call there, same climate of Singapore of course.
Some are saying it will be like the 80′ & 90’s where some drivers needed to be pulled out of the car, I don’t think it will as the physical fitness and diets are so much more advanced these days, but it will make them stand up and take notice- that’s ok, they get paid ok.
We’ve had drivers fainting and going to hospital in the very recent past. The last example I can think of is Jev Vergne in 2014: http://jalopnik.com/f1-driver-jean-eric-vergne-was-hospitalized-after-starv-1559375341 In fact, it’s the diets that cause this problem: Weight has become so critical that some drivers need to starve themselves and dehydrate on purpose to avoid carrying a lap time handicap with them.
The car weight doesnt affect how “physical” it is. If its high G forces its high G forces no matter what you are in. Theres no heavy wheel or janky shiftlever to hustle with so its basicly just keeping up with G forces while staying focused. With the drivers racking up several racedistances a day without braking a sweat i wouldnt be to worried about it though. Its mostly pr talks.
Does any one have the information regarding best sector times per team for all three sectors? Usually this can be an indication of who is sandbagging. I know we all want to figure out if Ferrari or Redbull are actually going to challenge Mercedes this year, this might point to something.
We wont know until quali in Melbourne in two weeks. Red Bull can start a bit slower and build up but if Mercs aren’t short odds for WCC I would be surprised.
I think Merc’s problem right now is trying to tame a beast as opposed to finding more. Corner exit speed on that merc is immense, Bottas having a bigger lift thru turn 9 than the rest, Lewis referring to the car as a ‘beast’ and just general opinion from track side observers (including Martin Brundle) kinda points to the fact that the car might be too fast. I could be wrong.
it would be REALLY interesting if the expected horsepower advantage of the Mercedes unit turned out to be a hindrance. it would make for a really good season, with Mercedes dominating the faster tracks and struggling in the slower ones…
So if the teams are able to change whatever they want on the engines now what exactly are they doing at the homologation and whats stopping Sauber from putting in hardware upgrades for the engine?
Well, in Sauber’s case, I’d argue their largest constraint there would be money @rethla! But seriously, since it is a Ferrari engine, their einge supplier will have made it VERY clear that they are not able to even come close to anything like that. The Engines aren’t sold to a team, they are leased, including a crew to operate them, to analyse everything and to advice on setttings. Off course things are different for the ones that make the engines, but there is a process, because there are rules about providing the same engine to all supplied teams.
Yeh i understand the deals made between teams but theres nothing in the rules stopping them from putting a completly new engine in there during the season?
Excellent use of ‘post-prandial’ by whoever’s manning the Force India Twitter account at the moment. There’s a phrase you don’t see often enough in F1.
Fairly quiet at the moment, I think we may have seen the fast lappery for now, meaning Ferrari bag another two weeks of good publicity!
A few more pictures from today’s test have just gone up here including some of the McLaren moving of its own accord, and not just on the back of a flatbed truck:
So the latest 2017 issue seems to be that teams will have serious fuel amount issues (especially in Melbourne and Bahrein). The amount of fuel allowed is too little for the new changes, which means races will be … wait for it… fuel saving races! (oh the banter)
Luckily Mclaren doesn’t have to worry about that. Since they won’t be completing races anyways might as well crank up the fuel flow and go out in a blaze of glory
There always has been and always will be fuel saving in F1 (without refueling) as any excess KG cost them dearly. Fuel saving is not as bad a tyre saving as it allows for more – and more strategic – racing during ‘non-saving parts’ of the GP
It is not that McL are last; it is just that they are lost!! How can one even imagine that F1 engine provider can provide such miserable performance, reliability and response?? What a shame.
well.. not sure if only Honda is to blame here. There are lots of parts made by MCL and looking at last year there were some amateuristic designs ( like a broken rearwing and so on) So i do not count out MCL for some of the errors.
I don’t see how you can assign any blame to Mclaren. Even if there are problems in the chassis, no one has found them yet because they haven’t gotten any running yet. 2017 is 100 % blame assigned to Honda
if i was MCL Fan i would blame Honda all the way because,OK last few years with the token changing the design was impossible, but this year they started and here again seems another trouble season…..
Well if they cant get it running in the next hour there no reason to stay at the track. They got better facilities at home trying to figure out whats wrong.
It will be interesting to look at the total laps / mileages for the teams when this is all over. We can speculate over fuel loads and sandbagging, but reliability will be much clearer (yes – I’m looking at you McLaren).
Yeah, I’ve seen a video now (apparently just before the spin), looks like something broke, either a suspension or oil leaking onto the tyres, because the handling looked way too wobbly for his speed at that moment.
I am curious whats stopping Mclaren do their own private tests in their makeshift place in the technology center just like Ferrari in the past and Mercedes when they had tyre problems?
Looking at the testing line-up, I am realising I’ve been hard on Williams. Stroll may be only average, but his money allows them a chance to make Kubica work. Look at Force India and Toro Rosso, testing two absolutely terrible drivers.
Keith, Are McLaren going to run Renault PU in this tests, like they did in 2014 with Honda after championship was finished, if I remember right they did only installation lap with Honda in that time
Hello everyone from the Circuit de Catalunya, welcome to the first day of testing for the 2017 season on F1 Fanatic Live!
Cheers!!
All ten teams are due to be running at the circuit today. The test gets underway at 9am local time which is 8am in the UK.
Hi all
Hello Keith
Thanks Keith for all that you do for us fans! Looking forward to this year being a cracker. See ya later lap records haha
The anticipation is building as we are about to see the dramatic new 2017 cars running in anger. As always in testing the lap times don’t mean a great deal but there is one important factor to them this year: are the cars going to hit that target for an improvement of five seconds per lap (based on 2015 lap times at this track)?
Are there any limits to the tires available or do they have a free choice of compounds?
Morning, everyone. Finally, the wait is over.
No better way to wake up for the brand new day than F1 anticipation!
Keith- looking forward to your thoughts on how the new cars look on track when they get some speed happening- exciting stuff!!
Looking forward to your comments on the new cars Keith
Looking forward to testing
Looking forward to this
Track temperature is 10C already and the sun is only just breaking through. The teams should get some pretty good running today – providing those new power units are reliable. (Less of a concern for Sauber).
Good morning guys.
Can’t wait !!!!
Haas have just presented their new car in the pits so I grabbed a few close-ups. They’re uploading at the moment.
As usual you can always find the very newest pictures at:
https://www.racefans.net/pictures/new/
There will also be updated daily image galleries.
Haas have chosen a rather grim grey colour for their car last year. It seems a fairly straightforward interpretation of the new regulations, though quite a bit of work has obviously gone on in the nose and bargeboard area, it’s nothing like as refined as some of the other cars.
Engines firing up in the pits, less than half an hour to go.
Is it alright if we listen to the engine fire ups
Always love these preseason tests. The pictures, the new bits, the premature gossip and conclusions, the easy distraction from work ;-)
Me too. I wish teams could streem live onboard vids..
Excellent the wait is over :). I seem to remember last year Toto talking about merc was going employ a sound engineer whos focus was to improve the acoustics.. did anything ever come of that?
Great that the waiting is over. Thank god I’m working night shift so I can follow live testing here from South America. It’s 2 am here.
Hard-core!
Excellent live.
Good morning everyone and happy first day of testing!
How to watch live testing? Any idea?
F1…F1…F1… is back :-) Yay!!!
where can i see the lap times and the compound and so on, so the live timing ?
f1today.net
Great to have F1 back!! Let the McLaren be a good car, please…
Where I’m sat the Red Bull and Mercedes garages are directly beneath me. It would probably be unethical to deploy a small drill and a fibre optic camera…
Awesome mate
No no no, I am sure they dont mind… We are anxiously waiting.
Do it Keith!
Ethics? F1? Is there a philosopher on staff?
Expect it would be easier to obtain a drill and camera…
Enjoy the day, Keith! Thanks for ‘inside’ the track view.
Great Feeling in some minutes the wait is over.. :) :)
Common Fernando!!!!
Anyway I’m going to watch the cars leave the pits for the first time and enjoy the noise!
Jelous!
Is there a live stream available?
Hi guys! Keit do you think there is any chance that Mclaren and Ferrari will be capable of winning races this season?
Keith*
Without seeing the results these weeks McLaren is probally still behind all except Sauber.
Get some shots of the red bull id like to see it physically , only car not seen in person
Finally!!!!!!!!
Alonso’s testing helmet is quite cool!
It reminds me of the Red Bull testing livery
No sharkfin on the FI?
It’s still there.
What’s the best place for pictures?
Keith, do you have any good Live Timing page to follow?
Just seen a pic of an FI and one without sharkfin. Are they that easy to dismantle?
We can only hope. Hope that the will of the fans can remove them at a great distance. ;-)
It’s part of the engine cover…so in F1’s extravagant ways, they might have brought more than one cover.
Just signing in…
I see, the Williams already got the small extra wing at the end of the shark fin.. that was fast :)
Hello all, from NZ. Thank you Keith for giving us the inside scoop on the first test for 2017 :)
Bottas on a 1.33.445? Is the RB out yet?
When nothing much is happening, tell us more how the life is there during testing. What areas are you allowed to acces around the track or in the pits etc. As it’s F1 I imagine there are even now 10 different access passes :) ?
Hello…
Williams T wing looks a bit last minute!
Ferrari’s t wing looks so dumb!
Are there any way to see sector times during practise?
Where can I watch the stream?
Is there a stream then?
RB13 has gone out and in daylight the fin is clearly a different colour to the livery. It’s definitely not a definitive piece
The first picture gallery from testing is up now on the home page.
Honda removed engine cover, is there any news what’s going on?
For those asking about live footage from testing, as always there is none:
https://www.racefans.net/f1-information/f1-faq/f1-live-watch-follow-television-online/
Hulkenberg’s black helmet actually looks good in the Renault.
Saw the top down view of the new Red Bull… that car’s packaging of the rear end is miles ahead of every other competitor
Keep seeing Bottas’s name on the timing screens and thinking ‘Williams are off to a good start’. But of course its Mercedes now. He’s already on his seventh lap.
So, on the first laps still, and the cars already beaten the fastest lap of the race from last year. Bottas with a 1:25:209
Observations: the RB13 is so ridiculously tightly packaged the floor is showing way too much, almost unsightly. The Mercedes has a voluptuous, slightly bulbous packaging of the sidepods which is absolutely gorgeous.
Any links to the timing screen?
http://en.f1i.com/live/
Thank you very much! Big help :-)
http://www.gpupdate.net/en/testresults/1808/formula-1-test-at-circuit-de-catalunya-27-february-2017/
Thank you Srdjan. This is with commentary as well :-)
This is the driver line-up for the week:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/02/27/driver-line-up-for-first-test-of-2017-confirmed/
Note hardly anyone doing two days back-to-back. That may be too much with these cars given how much running they could do in a day. Mercedes are splitting their workload between both drivers every day. That suggests they’re expecting to do as they did last year, multiple race distances per day.
Bottas and Vettel battling it out. Already in the 1m 24s
1m 23s
Morning everyone. Where you guys watching video? (Not that it matters atm as I have to go to stupid non F1 related work) Dammit. So jelly of Keith today
My bad https://www.racefans.net/f1-information/f1-faq/f1-live-watch-follow-television-online/
New batch of images going up.
Legend
Mercedes and Ferrari trading best laps atm. Does it matter? no, is it fun? Yes
Well i think the Renault engine sound has changed significantly
Is it just a sensor or are Williams running similar T-wing than what Mercedes are using?
Look like a wing to me.
i see this as an improvized solution. Clearly not planned from the start in the concept of their car, but will obviously be changed as the tests go on
Any links to timing boards? thx
http://en.f1i.com/live/#refresh
thx
http://en.f1i.com/live/
http://www.gpupdate.net/en/testresults/1808/formula-1-test-at-circuit-de-catalunya-27-february-2017/
http://en.f1i.com/live/
https://www.autosport.com/live/commentary/id/2507471/formula-1-testing-2017-barcelona-f1-test-day-one
Keith, is the RB rear down to a size -0.5?
If you just streamed the garage drill cam would save you answering these tedious questions…
Red Flag because of Ricciardo!
Red Flag, Ricciardo stopped
Forgot to wind the TAG Heuer?
Good news for any photographers down at turn four, lots of people will be after close-ups of the Red Bull…
Any live video streams anywhere?
Oh wait, just seen that they aren’t streaming them. That’s stupid and sucks.
RBR13 looks so much better on track. Very tight pod inlets. Magical sculptured car..
https://images.scribblelive.com/2017/2/27/eb3296fd-23b7-47b9-a6e1-52d830a59d75_500.jpg
Wow, thanks for that. It looks stealthy, like a F-22 or something.
Np my thoughts also..
http://avionale.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/USAF_Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor_Front_Angle_Wingspan.jpg
Is Vettel on a 1:23.5 or 1:24.5? Different sites reporting different times.
Currently it’s 1:23.560.
23.5
My fault. Clearly didn’t refresh the screen as mentioned by the site owner.
1:23.560, they have corrected the times now.
Ooooh nooooo! Cant emagine what the Renault engine teams must be going through at the moment.
I remember Sky was broadcasting Live Testing on their F1 channel a few years ago (it was final Testing days IIRC, and also they broadcasted in the evening), sadly no footage is available now unless you have Sky package, then I think something Live is available in Sky Sports News HQ.
Anyway, looking not bad after the first hour, fastest time overall last year was around 1:22 mark with SuperSofts IIRC, we’re at 1:23.5 with Mediums now, and on the first day.
http://www.skysports.com/f1/live-blog/30125/10770252/f1-testing-day-one-8211-live
I know they have the blog, but I meant ACTUAL VIDEO FOOTAGE. Like they broadcasted it on TV live… I remember watching it, was fun.
I understand, but have not seen that in recent years.
Is fi getting some coin of merc for all that silver… i really dont like there livery this year..
I hope you have a jacket with you Keith. I’m seeing a lot of coat-hangers, it will be a formal dinner
Seems a bit of a fuss when my diet at these things is usually restricted to bottled water and crisps plus whatever I can scavenge from the teams (usually unhealthy quantities of coffee).
Haha. You’re making me feel guilty about not sponsoring the site yet Keith!
Oil system issue for McLaren, needs several hours of fixing.
Same old McLaren, same old.
Bit of orange paint hasn’t suddenly changed the nature of the beast
It’s just tradition of the last few years. Go do an installation lap, discover a new issue, spend all day fixing it and start again the next testing day. The same cycle gets repeated every day of pre season testing, and then they skip racing for entire season and use it as a test ground for the next year.
Red Bull ‘only’ a sensor issue.
Ferrari off to a decent start, 18 laps on the board, more than anyone. (I can tell you this having successfully cajoled the press office staff to turn up the brightness on the timing screens so that we might actually read them. Ah, the glamorous F1 life).
We’d happily take your place Keith
Track temperature now up over 20C so hopefully the teams should be able to get some useful data.
Oh joy, they’ve turned on the speakers in the grandstands. Do they not suspect that perhaps the fans came here to listen to the cars?
Keith, u never mentioned which team u support as a fan
That’s because I don’t :-) I prefer not to play favourites. As far as teams go my interest is in seeing more of them. That’s what F1 really needs. It’s a terrible shame Manor has gone.
Hulkenberg with his new helmet design reminds me of the magic Kubica Renault combination of 2010. I will take this as a sign of something special hapenning this season :D :D
https://www.racefans.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Copy-of-kubi_hami_melb_2010.jpg
Isn’t it just a plain helmet? Usually drivers run plain helmets in testing as they are trialling new concepts or different manufacturers, or they haven’t decided on the design of their new helmet yet
It might be. It says a lot when (in my opinion) a plain helmet is the best looking helmet on the grid.
I do hope it’s the real deal though.
Disappointed with McLaren-Honda. Problems again.
Close fight…Force India and Williams
Johnnie Walker rear wing, silver and black car, are we sure Force India haven’t just bought along an old McLaren for testing so far?
1. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’23.560, 18 laps
2. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’24.654 (+1.094), 19 laps
3. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’26.171 (+2.611), 10 laps
4. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’26.525 (+2.965), 10 laps
5. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’28.712 (+5.152), 4 laps
6. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’28.928 (+5.368), 10 laps
7. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17 5 laps
8. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12 5 laps
9. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36 4 laps
10. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32 1 lap Last updated at: 10:41 CET
The Renault car is raking the laps. Hopefully the engine can match the front runners.
Bottas does a 1’23.370 which puts him 1.3 inside the 2015 pole position time. That is the reference point for the ‘five seconds faster’ target.
But Force India has made the biggest gain so far, they’re 1.9s quicker than they were at this track in the 2015 race weekend.
Close fight…Force India and Williams
Honda :(
Looks like they just cant seem to get the magic of the 80”s and 90’s….
Going to be a fast fast season.
“It’s not good news for McLaren-Honda to be sat in the garage chasing some kind of oil system problem. The engines coming to this test should all be test-bench run and where the engine connects up to the system of the car should be bulletproof. Using the excuse that this is testing and things will go wrong is rubbish because you only have eight days and you need to hit the ground running. Losing a big part of a day is time you will never recover, and by the time the McLaren runs again, most of its rivals will have built up a lot of mileage. We’ve seen a lot of finger problems for McLaren and Honda during the past few years, and maybe this is the same again. Not a good start to testing.”
Couldn’t agree more.
It just puts in to perspective how Alonso changed his target from fighting for wins to a mere ‘respectable performances’. So far, Mclaren is still far away from respectable.
As an Alonso fan, I think it’s great. It’s give him more time to walk around the paddock and start contract negotiations with other teams.
And adding on to Luka’s comment, loosing half a day in todays massively restricted testing time available is a small disaster
1. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’23.370, 35 laps
2. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’23.560 (+0.190), 28 laps
3. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’25.956 (+2.586), 17 laps
4. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’26.171 (+2.801), 11 laps
5. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’26.500 (+3.130), 17 laps
6. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’28.235 (+4.865), 16 laps
7. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’28.712 (+5.342), 4 laps
8. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17 7 laps
9. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12 5 laps
10. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32 1 lap Last updated at: 11:8 CET
A very positive morning thus far for the Ferrari team. Everyone has been writing them off this season, but I think they could be the surprise this season. Plus with far more downforce and bigger tyres, I suspect this will favour Vettel’s style of driving, unlike the last three years.
What the hell are Mclaren doing? They’re already 100 laps down on Mercedes in testing mileage.
I think Ferrari are looking good too, and could be the one battling the Mercs come Melbourne. About new regs suiting Vettel’s style… well… I don’t think the previous didn’t suit him. It just sounded as an excuse when he was underperforming
Just saw a video on a Facebook page, the cars look proper F1 cars. Stunning
And loving the sound btw
I love the look of the cars this year. It’s great to see them going back to ‘proper’ width. I probably won’t get chance to watch them at one of the quick corners today, but will make a point of doing it tomorrow or Wednesday.
Keith try to watch them at Turn 14&15 maybe the rear end of cars will be extraordinary taking sudden right left right corner at that pace
If we could have some footage Keith, that would be amazing, even if it is with your phone
@João Leite – do you have a link?
https://www.facebook.com/Formula1Portugal/?fref=ts
the page is in Portuguese, but the video should be in their feed
Wich page it is?
1. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’23.370, 39 laps
2. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’23.560 (+0.190), 28 laps
3. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’25.956 (+2.586), 17 laps
4. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’26.171 (+2.801), 11 laps
5. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’26.319 (+2.949), 19 laps
6. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’27.762 (+4.392), 7 laps
7. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’28.235 (+4.865), 16 laps
8. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’28.712 (+5.342), 4 laps
9. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 7 laps
10. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1 lap Last updated at: 11:20 CET
http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nCKedBK0huA/VS9gbwM0hkI/AAAAAAAAnIs/A4ZaUnIc66I/s0/shanghai_fan_alonso_chi15.jpg
lol
I absolutely love the new Torro Rosso paint job! I hope it’s as fast as it is pretty!
The latest batch of images is going up now.
So, pole at last years Spanish Gran Prix was 1:22.000, on the first morning of testing the Mercs are 1.3 seconds off!
I think it’s gonna be fast this year.
Bottas just lowered it again, 1.169 seconds off last years pole now.
I think it’s gonna be fast this year.
Those McLaren gremlins are really disappointing!
It’s very hard being a McLaren fan, these days.
Yeah i was hoping for better, If it continues i can’t even see Alonso making the first race. I’m sure it won’t though (but that’s what i thought before this morning too!)
Bottas is already close to the 60 laps mark. It is just remarkable how they start putting miles on that car straight away, it does transpire a sence of confidence that just doesn’t show in other teams. Vettel managed 38 so far, not bad
“A snapshot of how the 2017 Pirelli tyre compounds hold up? Perez did two ‘push’ laps straight away that were very close in time, with the second lap set to be an improvement until it fell away slightly in the final sector. He then backed off for a lap, pushed again on his 4th of this run, and improved to a 1m23.835s. Track temperature is 28.3 degrees, so cooler than we’ll see at a lot of places, but hopefully that’s a sign that the tyres will hold up better this season.”
Rapid time from Vettel puts him top. Bottas closing on a race distance but not lapping right now:
1. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.791, 40 laps
2. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’23.169 (+0.378), 59 laps
3. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’23.835 (+1.044), 27 laps
4. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’25.956 (+3.165), 17 laps
5. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’26.319 (+3.528), 22 laps
6. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’26.726 (+3.935), 14 laps
7. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’27.229 (+4.438), 9 laps
8. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’27.710 (+4.919), 23 laps
9. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’28.712 (+5.921), 4 laps
10. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32 1 lap Last updated at: 12:13 CET
Wait, wasn’t 1:22.7XX the best time in last year’s Testing?.. And with SuperSofts?
yes…..2016 best – 1:22.765 by Kimi on Supersofts – Vettel still on the mediums
Actually I think Kimi was on Ultrasoft for that time in 2016….not sure though
I think you’re right about US.
Note: Vettel time on Mediums!
Keith, quite a nerdy question. Any marbles on the track yet? How are this tyres behaving?
Apparently the Red Bull sensor issue requires the gearbox to be taken off to fix – hence the long delay getting the RB13 running again.
At least this year Marrussia isn’t faster than McLaren :/
currently running at about the same pace aren’t they ;)
Yes, it’s because Marrussia is not around😂 If it were, Marrussia probably would have done one lap more than the mcl32:)
Thanks to everyone who supplied feedback on what you want to know from testing – I’ve replied here:
https://www.racefans.net/groups/f1/forum/topic/what-do-you-want-to-know-from-testing/#post-335721
Sorting out interview plans for this afternoon. It looks like we’ll be hearing from Kevin Magnussen first…
I thought that all cars were longer, but reading James Allen’s analysis it seems not all cars are longer this year?
Might sound a bit simplistic, but why does McLaren not just change the engine and send the other one back to be pulled apart by Honda? Surely they brought more than 1 with their recent history.
1. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.791 50 laps
2. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’23.169 (+0.378), 69 laps
3. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’23.709 (+0.918), 35 laps
4. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’25.552 (+2.761), 31 laps
5. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’26.319 (+3.528), 22 laps
6. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’26.404 (+3.613), 14 laps
7. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’26.726 (+3.935), 14 laps
8. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’27.710 (+4.919), 23 laps
9. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’28.712 (+5.921), 4 laps
10. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32 1 lap Last updated at: 12:43 CET
hi guys whats going on
ahh not good my 2 worst scenarios Ferrari at the top Macca at the bottom.:(
the problem I have this year who am I going to support now mr buttons not here any ideas guys thinking verstapen ?
Vandoorne’s my Button replacement.
I’ll be cheering on Bottas.
Hi Wayne,
Here’s my take on this: just do not support anyone and enjoy the races, the driving lines, the cars. Every race will then become a good one :)
Cheers
Wait until there’s someone you know you like, you don’t just choose. For example, I like Hulkenberg because I went to Brandshatch in 2007 to watch A1GP, and got a 05/06 season review, during which he won 9 races in a row at one point, so when he came to F1 I instantly liked him.
06/07 season* and 9 race wins in total, 6 in a row at one point. My brain and typing isn’t working
Wondering what state Bottas is going to be in after this run. 76 laps, twice as many as everyone else apart from Vettel.
i think they have allowed him to get used to the car a good thing in my opinion
The chequered flag is out for the lunch break, here are the times so far:
1. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.791 62 laps
2. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’23.169 (+0.378), 79 laps
3. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’23.709 (+0.918), 39 laps
4. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’25.552 (+2.761), 39 laps
5. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’25.562 (+2.771), 17 laps
6. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’26.319 (+3.528), 22 laps
7. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’26.404 (+3.613), 15 laps
8. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’26.865 (+4.074), 32 laps
9. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’28.712 (+5.921), 4 laps
10. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32 1 lap Last updated at: 13:02 CET
Why is the Red Bull so slow, any ideas?
Why is the Red Bull so slow, any ideas? O nvm, only 4 laps
They’ve got problems with some sensor.
So far:
Honda – 1 lap,
Renault – 40 laps,
Ferrari – 109 laps,
Mercedes – 155 laps.
Do you think Alonso will walk away from his McLaren contract if it looks like he’s in for another year of struggling? Jenson’s retirement may be short lived
I don’t think he’ll cut the contract short, I think he’ll see out the season. But he’s made it plain he is prepared to walk at the end of 2017 if he’s not happy. And that appears to go for the direction of the sport as much as the performance of the McLaren. After all a Mercedes deal could be on the table for 2018.
Bottas got 1y contract for Mercedes so everyone’s keeping options open. If Hamilton is acting badly and Bottas is performing well, why not Alonso+Bottas for 2018 Mercedes.
That’s true, the sport needs him in it, I just hope McLaren don’t lose too much development time to the other teams testing.
The sport needs Hamilton far more than it needs Alonso
Same feeling as Keith. He’s better off doing a season like the previous one to get a seat at Mercedes next year than just stopping to race and, maybe, watching Bottas doing a good job without being able to respond on the track.
And Alsonso said, he wants to be racing at 80 too. So if the new F1 is interesting, why not stay in for couple of years more. Last years haven’t shown that young guys are faster or better, they just take more risks.
I’m somehow already confident FA will like the direction F1 is going with these cars and tires, and thus will want to stay in F1, even if not at Mac.
Is the Haas seriously faster than the McLaren o.O
Any information about the cornering speed?
Fast.
The honey badger is back on track btw
and it appears that the MCL32 will rejoin shortly as well. That engine needs to start consuming petrol instead of oil
Merc spotting a ‘shark fin’. Has to be the sexiest shark fin thus far.
It’s really small! Perhaps they’ll try a bigger version as well.
looks better than the rest
Hamilton has joined the fray and is working his way up the times:
1. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.791 62 laps
2. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’23.169 (+0.378), 79 laps
3. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’23.269 (+0.478), 44 laps
4. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’23.709 (+0.918), 39 laps
5. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’24.756 (+1.965), 7 laps
6. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’25.206 (+2.415), 29 laps
7. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’25.646 (+2.855), 24 laps
8. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’26.319 (+3.528), 32 laps
9. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’26.865 (+4.074), 42 laps
10. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’27.881 (+5.090), 8 laps
11. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32 1 lap Last updated at: 14:45 CET
Interesting slot in the top of the Merc shark fin
could it be like a s duct but going from the airbox out of the top of the fin ? interesting
Just Massa lapping at the moment, now within half a second of the day’s best time.
There’s a drilling sound coming from the other end of the press room which makes me wonder if someone else had my idea about spying on Mercedes and Red Bull…
Rumor has it that sound is Alonso bolting a GP2 engine to the back of his car so he can actually do some testing ;-)
At least it will match the GP2 livery
sad to see Alonso and Mcl stuck to the garage, ruins the show!!!
what’s the best innovation that we have seen in the first half? “Nostrils” @ RBR? Any other hidden “smart” parts that escaped notice?
I know the RBR nostril looks more striking but I don’t think there’s any evidene to suggest it’s a better solution then the Force India Nostrils.
I find Mercedes’ shark fin with inbuilt chimney more interesting (and better looking) abi
The slot in the top of Merc’s shark fin. Might be cooling. Might be aero. Probably both.
I don’t understand why McLaren put themselves in these positions they use to pride themselves on 100% reliability in testing during the Hakkinen days what’s so wrong with this team its getting a little ridiculous now im thinking honda will pull the plug next season they cant catch the mercs and they know it in my view they will leave McLaren high and dry just like in the brawn days without warning. i just cant see them getting on par with the mercs and even Renault and that’s very sad too see from a supporter.
they say they are on par power wise with the merc 2016 spec ice unit but they can’t even get a year old spec engine running mercs 2016 ice unit was an updated version of the original so the information is widely available to build a resilient reliable unit but its honda and they still can’t do that .
The information is not widely available. The teams know the layout and general technical aspects of the design of mercs engine but they don’y know about the specific detail and design of every single part.
From what it looks like the issue McLaren have got is not a major design issue it is simply an oil leak which could be caused by any number of simple issues. The problem for them is that most of the fixes include taking the car to pieces so it erodes testing time.
playing catchup isn’t good in f1 though. as for the engine. engineers aren’t silly there are ways and means of getting hold of information (which we don’t know about after all McLaren have done it before ‘Ferrari gate’ doesn’t mean to say they wouldn’t do it again.
As I said, it is unlikely they will be able to get details to copy the engine without risking a severe punishment. The engineers will have gotten as much information as possible but just one small detail could be all that is needed to mess that information up.
And all the teams are playing catch-up to Mercedes due to the stupid regulations. We have no idea what state that Honda Engine is in. It could for all we know be much better than the Merc engine or it could be worse than last years Honda engine… we simply have not seen it do anything to be able to tell.
@Scribe: probably not a game changer..but the fact that Newey and Co managed to put something in a section of the car that’s really banned by FIA for any development work, is itself interesting.. though it may not be of much value other than cleaning up the disturbed airflow around badgeboards, eventually
It is pretty cool to see visible innovation on the cars again though. The less spec F1 cars look the better.
MCLAREN GET OUT THERE
Honda get out there😉
What the hell are Mclaren doing? They’re already 100 laps down on Mercedes in testing mileage.
They are probably replacing the power unit which is not a 10 minute job.
Don’t think they needed to replace the power unit. They said a few hours.. but looks like they’re skipping the day.
With the Mercs lapping away ( now into three figures) does anyone else get that deja vu feeling….
Deja vu is unpredictable. This? Not so much!
Hahah I guess you made my point even more striaght forward!
there’s some footage on periscope guys Vindicast @VindicastF1.
It’s frustrating to see such a talented driver, that is Alonso, sitting at the mercy of the crappy Honda engine when we all know he has the skills to beat both the Mercedes cars in say, the current Ferrari.
Also, he has had bad luck with switching teams. Everytime he switches, the team he leaves become stronger and the team he joins becomes crap. Hopefully it won’t be the case next time.
:D Thanks for the laugh. He’s good, but not THAT good.
Aw come on, he almost beat Vettel to the title in what, 2013? That was when Red Bull was the Mercedes of the time, but he still came close. I don’t know about your opinions, but according to me, Fernando is VERY talented.
Plus, I didn’t say anything about him being good, did I? Just skillful. :)
1) The RB was never Mercedes in its time. Webber proving this.
2) Yes Alonso drove good in 2013, but no better than lets say Vettel in 2015. Without checking the exact facts of 2013, I am sure Alonso benefitted some bad luck Vettel had which cost him valuable points.
And lastly, Hamilton in the same car as a rookie was more than a match. What makes you think he could beat him in a Ferrari?
Skillful is a synonym for good. It was 2012 that Alonso nearly beat Vettel, and the Red Bull certainly wasn’t the mercedes of that year, for much of the season Mclaren were faster and Ferrari had the best car in the wet, bearing in mind there were a lot of wet sessions that year. He drove well, and is a great driver, and but he woudn’t be able to beat a merc were he still driving for ferrari, he’d have enough on his plate trying to beat the red bulls (based on 2016 car performance).
Also there are only so many times that a driver can be unlucky when they change teams, before some sort of correlation must be considered. For the last decade, every time he has joined a new team they have made little major progress. Perhaps one of his weaknesses is that he isn’t good at helping to develop the car.
That say a lot though without meaning to be disrespectful maybe they improve because he isn’t there works both ways.
hahaha you trolling right?
Frustrating sure, but no point jumping all over Honda. It’s just one oil leak that may have revealed something that will educate them to never have that happen again this season…for all we know. And as to ‘every time he switches’ I don’t think his last move, away from Ferrari, left them stronger.
Well… Honda had nothing but failures to educate themselves over the past 2 seasons. To me .. they seem over over educated and under achieving incompetents
No, he wouldn’t beat anyone on Mercedes with that Ferrari. (2016 specs, this year we don’t know nothing yet)
And of course Mr Alonso was the undisputed number one driver. That fact is conveniently glossed over by those wearing tinfoil hats because of course, if he had a strong driver next to him he would have taken points off Alonso. Just like 07 and 15.
Once again Mclaren Honda has registered a huge fail.
Just plain disappointing that a once highly professional outfit is looking so inept.
RBR’s “sensor” issue seems to be more than that as well given their extreme lack of laps.
Their scenario is almost looking like one of aarava’s F1 skits xD
Hamilton already faster than last year’s pole
Horner confirms Ricciardo’s car also had battery failure.
Alonso in the Mclaren has left the garage
Great news – Alonso is finally back on track. Does one lap, returns to pits – looks like engine is still nothing great.
And Alonso returns to the garage with the Honda engine switched off. Classic Mclaren!
i was just about to comment “hallelujah” on your previous comment, but i guess no…
btw is there anywhere we can watch the pre season test live?
No official streams or whatsoever. Although you can find some people livestreaming using phones in Twitter/Facebook (found out in formula1 subreddit)
Alonso is back now. Hopefully for more than 1 lap now. :D
fingers crossed!
For 2 laps it seems. He’s back in pits now. Still, he now doubled the lap count. (sarcasm btw)
After blame Dennis and Capisto for the poor results and the problems with the car, it seems that this 2017 model could maintain the MP4 name, because its the same old thing since the arrival of the “Alonso-Honda Era”
“Alonso-Honda Era” Sad but true !
Finally, McLaren on board – 1:26.110 on Hard tyres.
#progress
Apologies for the lack of updates, have been hearing from Boullier plus the Red Bull top staff. Here’s the current times:
1. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’21.765 38 laps
2. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.370 (+0.605), 76 laps
3. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’22.370 (+0.605), 86 laps
4. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’23.169 (+1.404), 79 laps
5. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’23.709 (+1.944), 39 laps
6. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’24.494 (+2.729), 51 laps
7. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’24.935 (+3.170), 20 laps
8. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’25.260 (+3.495), 31 laps
9. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’25.586 (+3.821), 8 laps
10. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’25.966 (+4.201), 32 laps
11. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’26.841 (+5.076), 64 laps Last updated at: 16:41 CET
Mercedes looking stroooooonG.
Keith – can we get an indicator of which tyres each driver is setting their best times on? This would be very helpful in seeing how representative each time is!
You can find what you’re looking for here:
http://www.skysports.com/f1/live-blog/30125/10770252/f1-testing-day-one-8211-live
However I do not believe this is official data, just observations from the Sky Team I think.
Ferrari and Vettel looking good.
Yes, but last year was the same..
But Mercedes and Ferrari seems very good.
Yep. he just posted a 1:21.878 .. which is just 0.1s off the Mercs. Mercs however set the time on the Softs while Vettel posted it on the mediums
The nokia 3310 was originally launched in the year 2000, which coincidentally matches the first year of Ferrari dominance.
Fast forward to 2017 and a new nokia 3310 reached the market, with a new modern design. Coincidence? I don’t think so
Ahhhh….. but… BUT…..
Ten years ago… 2007…. the first iPhone AND the first Adrian Newey Red Bull car…
In that net 11 year timespan we have had 7 new iphones and 4 dominant Red Bulls…..
4+7 = 11
:0
But Steve Jobs isn’t among us anymore. The nokia theory is bullet proof.
Hahahaha
I’m going to buy that Nokia, even if I don’t need one.
Vettel is being spared the media pool this evening which is probably fair as he’s already done over 100 laps…
Got a new set of pictures going up for you to enjoy at the moment.
Cheers Keith. Still waiting to see detailed pictures of the rear of the Red Bull, full first day almost finished and still haven’t seen any
Track temperature peaked at just over 30C a while ago. It’s back down to 25C now so conditions are looking good for a late flier if anyone fancies it.
Why aren’t sky covering this on their F1 channel? I was on it earlier and nadda, just re-runs of special features.
Maybe because pre-season testing does not “sell” and they don’t want to spend money on camera crews
There is 15 minutes of what I presume are highlights at 9pm on Sky F1 in the UK, followed by Ted’s Testing Notebook at 9:15
Don’t think FOM offer live testing coverage to broadcasters. Truthfully, it’s not very exciting. You know all the silly whingeing about how “boring” practice sessions can be? That times a hundred. They’re not meant to entertain.
Part of me loves the idea of being there @keithcollantine, being very envious of you – but I think I’m probably best off being grateful to just pay F1fanatic membership and having you provide ace coverage, leaving me to see the pics, and take a look once every while during the week!
I don’t get why so many are suprised by McLaren-Honda on this test. If they have modified the engine as much as they did, it’s quite normal to have big fixes to do at the beginning (like very team had to). Hopefully it is for the best afterwards…
It’s the kind of thing which could hint at a major underlying problem, or it could be a minor teething problem of no consequence at all.
Indeed, time will tell.
“According to our colleagues in the German media, McLaren ‘McLaren problems caused by a new oil tank’ which is ‘smaller and lighter’ – and it, would appear, more problematic too!” – Sky
They did 100km or so yesterday with no problems
So it may be another two years to get this engine up to speed, as it seems like they have just caught up with the Merc and their original engine layout/concept!
Gotta be positive about this. At least there’s a good chance of getting McLaren shirts and stuff at reduced rates again quite early in the season …
Hamilton joins team mate Bottas plus Vettel, Massa and Ericsson in the ‘race distance club’.
Is this the most productive day for Ferrari in the last 3 years (in terms of number of laps). I remember in the last 2 Seb years, they haven’t been able to do as many laps as other teams.
Heading off to the paddock shortly. All being well should hear from Ricciardo, Alonso, Massa and Guenther Steiner.
And that’s test one done – times coming up on the main site, more quotes and pictures soon.
ok, McLaren state is worrying, but a bit less than this morning!
True. Hopefully they improve tomorrow, but then it won’t be Alonso steering the car :/
Good morning. Thanks for giving us news and info @F1 testing. No fake news here lol.
I’ve managed to find a YouTube feed with yesterday’s Sky coverage (presented by Craig Slater) but can’t see it on their live planner – anyone know where to watch it?
by the way, morning guys :)
can’t. sorry, you will have to wait for the highlights or the videos that will be released during the day
Good morning from the Circuit de Catalunya everyone! Today’s test starts in half an hour and we will have Lance Stroll, Stoffel Vandoorne and Antonio Giovinazz joining the runners.
Good morning.
Good morning here from Denmark
As a Belgian, this is an exciting day!
Now let’s just hope that McLaren is competitive :/
I’m curious to see Max’s pace in the Red Bull today. Let’s hope they can get a trouble free 100+ laps in today. Would be great to get a slight hint of the pecking order already
Also good morning to Keith and fellow f1fanatics..
Is Vandoorne considered a rookie, or can we give the rookie of the year award to Stroll right away?
It’s something we need a definition for, isn’t it? Strictly speaking it would have to be someone who’s done zero races. Or you could say no more than five, or ten, or half a season…
He was a reserve driver last year and he is a race driver this season. So he should be eligible.
Would be funny if Stroll gets it though… looking at Mclaren’s challenger this year, it’s entirely possible that Stroll will finish the year with a higher points total than Stoffel
Vandoorne does have a race under is belt. And if it is half a season as Keith says, is Ocon eligible? Should we tweet FIA?
Ah, there’s the engines. Raikkonen, Stroll, Giovinazzi and Magnussen all head out as the lights go green.
Keith – I’ve read on two separate sources that the engines both sound better and louder this year. Can you shed any light on this?
I was at the test yesterday and must say engine noise sounded quite impressive, albeit in the lower gears. For some reason the cars are really quite quiet down the main straight when at top speed. Bottas almost snuck up on me at turn one on a number of occasions! All in all, however, I would say it is an improvement.
McLaren already stopped.
Hahahaha
This is just getting hilarious now. So I guess Mclaren hasn’t completed investigating the issue yet.. or is another problem? Maybe the shape and size of the ICE is now the problem.
Oh dear, McLaren.
I have to say I was impressed how Boullier took it all on the chin yesterday in a media briefing which was rather strained at times. But putting a brave face on this is the least of their challenges..
Oh dear. Another season biding time for Alonso?
I…but…COME ON! :(
I really hope Honda doesn’t make Mclaren crawl back begging to Mercedes for an engine cause that will be the worst thing ever.
I guess its a Renault PU next …..
Any times /drivers on track?
Looking at the zero size cars like Red Bull and Ferrari, I almost worry about the driving in close quarters. The floor is so big and so low, that it could be deceptive when going wheel to weel, and the drivers hit each other’s floors. Thoughts?
It’s inset from the edge of the wheels by the same amount as last year. But yes, Massa suggested yesterday there could be more contact in the opening races at least because of the wider cars.
This means also that their races are influenced of damaged boards. I think after a few starts the drivers will be more causious during the start.
I saw that it’s inset from the edge of the wheels the same amount, but the body is further away, and at 250 kph, and with the floor practically invisible, I can imagine the body being a framing target, which could be problematic?
Hamilton zaps back in, attacking the pit box entry – need to get a feel for the new car width. Alonso was saying yesterday how little details like this is one of the things he’s missed a chance to practice after yesterday:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/02/27/alonso-relying-on-experience-after-day-one-setback/
Also, say what you will, but I think the T-wings are far uglier than shark fins.
hear hear
I like the fact the cars have got difference pieces on which distinguish between them. I don’t want them to all look the same, then it would be NASCAR. I worry that’s where F1’s heading with all this talk of banning this and that because some people don’t like the aesthetics.
I agree with you on distinguishing pieces. Nor would I ban anything because it’s ugly. But the T-wing is a thin, weird little appendage on the rear. It’s just unpleasing.
Yes I agree , though the shark fins are super ugly
Writing up a few more quotes from Alonso, about to go on the site.
Is there a reason why Honda didn’t deliver a good and reliable engine by now? We are already at the third year and this is unnaceptable.
As a spectacle, I’ve a feeling Mercedes will ride off into the sunset again this year. Except this year, Rosberg won’t be there to make it half competitive. While bottas is a decent driver I fear he is a yes man. ‘Do as your told or no contract extension for next year’
Hamilton will walk to the championship unfortunately imo.
I sincerely hope not
Only Hamilton has set a time so far, 1’26.834. And the track is quiet right now. Renault and Force India haven’t been out yet.
Is this new double t-wing race legal? can’t see anybody else running anything close..
Dunno however i find it well uglyhttps://images.scribblelive.com/2017/2/28/03169a1b-c952-4cc8-8512-1e51448655e9_500.jpg
you like rakes? because that’s how you get rakes!
It probably is, looks like a loophole was found. I hope they ban these abominations before the first race.
Vandoorne back on track
yes!
Stroll puts up his first time, 1’28.946.
I’ve seen an interesting quote from Autosport regarding Honda.
It’s worry to see Honda say that there are concerns about its oil tank based on what happened yesterday. To discover an oil tank shape is potentially incorrect suggests something is seriously wrong as normally it only shows up as a pickup problem in fast corners. To discover it on an installation lap at lower speeds suggests it’s a fundamental problem. The oil tank is vital to the engine and something most teams have a very good understanding of and very good test rigs to simulate all the forces and flows. So for McLaren and Honda to come to the first test session with a potential problem is a concern. It seems they are still missing out on the basics.
If that is true then it’s unacceptable from Honda to do that huge of a mistake on their 3rd year.
They appear to have sorted the issue out as Alonso was trouble free once he went back out and Vandorne seems fine so far.
And now Stroll goes top, 1’26.450. Still just him and Hamilton on the board, and almost five seconds off yesterday’s times.
Is there any website that shows all laptimes in a similar way to f1tests.cc did a few years back?
If not, Keith, would you consider providing such a service for test 2?
No, it would be a waste of time because it would get taken down by FOM’s lawyers just as all those other sites have been.
Sources say there could be be an oil tank design problem for the Honda PU?
From the BBC:
“Honda’s “oil system” problem that kept Fernando Alonso’s McLaren in the garage for much of yesterday was indeed caused by the shape of the oil tank which did not allow the oil to be properly scavenged.
The tank was modified prior to the first day of the test, but the problem persisted.
Further modifications were made to the tank last night.”
Yeah ..pretty much what Gary Anderson has summarized on Autosport. It’s a fundamental design issue. Looks like my season ends even before it starts once again.
1. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’24.794 8 laps
2. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’26.040 (+1.246), 12 laps
3. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’26.834 (+2.040), 8 laps
4. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’28.616 (+3.822), 10 laps
5. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H 7 laps
6. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17 5 laps
7. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32 5 laps
8. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36 2 laps Last updated at: 9:58 CET
Keith any ideas of why that is happening with Honda? Is there a reason they haven’t delivered a good engine in their 3rd year?
You’re jumping to conclusions, mate. Zero indications for the Honda engine’s quality (or lack thereof) so far.
Keep finding Ferrari’s pace on the mediums very impressive
So Alonso’s last season then..
Sure looks like it now :(
Remember this is very early days still. I suspect a car which is competitive but breaks down occasionally would not be a huge disappointment. And there’s always the possibility of a Mercedes drive in 2018.
I don’t think Mercedes will ever consider Alonso. Bottas is boringly slow, but if he will deliver good enough results to help the team earn the WCC, then I don’t see any reason to replace Bottas. Especially if Bottas will always be second to Hamilton.
Not unless Red Bull is just slightly behind with 2 very competitive drivers. Honestly, Alonso’s fate lies in the hands of Bottas underperforming/Hamilton exploding/Red Bull catching up.
Mercedes would be foolish to turn down Alonso if they really need a driver who can deliver them results better than Rosberg did.
I agree! Let’s hope they don’t have to change the oil-tank.. https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/honda-suspects-oil-tank-design-is-cause-of-trouble-878008/
Yes . He overstayed his welcome.
Ha, what are those Max Chilton fans about?
It was a joke, they’re Verstappen fans :-) But from where I’m sat I can only read the bit which says “Go Max”.
Oh :/ poor Chilton :)
More interested in his brother in BTCC these days.
All quiet on the track now, Raikkonen still fastest on 1’23.718.
Incidentally the timing screens don’t include tyre information so the only way to get that is monitor every car while it’s on track. And the same tyre markings used in the races aren’t always used in testing.
Haha, you’ve heard my thoughts, :)
Which compound are the teams using? All different?if so it’s Hard to compare the times
Check out http://en.f1i.com/live/#refresh it shows timings, number of laps and compounds
Have to admit I loved the Toro Rosso for being original and bold, but in action it actually is a bit of a mess. Doesn’t totally work.
It looks terrific in motion. The silver catches the light beautifully. Sadly, we’ve got cloud cover today. Yesterday was glorious.
Will reserve further judgement till Australia, but not found one flattering ‘in action’ angle yet
ferrari yesterday and today are using medium tyres, mercedes and redbull are on soft
Track temperature is only 16C by the way so don’t get too hung up on tyre compounds. This is way cooler than we’d see at a typical race. Ricciardo was talking about this yesterday:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/02/27/ricciardo-says-red-bull-has-a-lot-more-to-come/
Hamilton does a 1’21.766 to head the times again. He was on softs.
I notice the cars rear light can now flash green as well as red?
Only Lance Stroll as it is a sign that a rookie is driving in front of you
it always could. It’s the rookie light for Stroll
That’s where i saw it XD
Ferrari seems not that busy today right?
It’s a relief to see the McLaren having 20 laps done, albeit at a slow pace for now.
Is there a little light under the front wing of the toro rosso?
https://www.racefans.net/2017/02/28/2017-pre-season-testing-day-two-in-pictures/motor-racing-formula-one-testing-test-one-day-2-barcelona-spain-104/
https://www.racefans.net/2017/02/28/2017-pre-season-testing-day-two-in-pictures/motor-racing-formula-one-testing-test-one-day-2-barcelona-spain-107/
Ride height sensor? I think I saw one on a GT car in testing once..
Times after two hours:
1. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’21.766 32 laps
2. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’23.359 (+1.593), 18 laps
3. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’24.366 (+2.600), 19 laps
4. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’26.040 (+4.274), 12 laps
5. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’26.161 (+4.395), 16 laps
6. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’26.204 (+4.438), 22 laps
7. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 5 laps
8. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36: 2 laps
9. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1 lap Last updated at: 10:58 CET
More pictures being uploaded now in the gallery on the site.
Some Progress from Mclaren Honda finally. Hopefully those Oil Problems were just a coincidence. Waiting now to see what the Car can do on full power.
Any chance of getting some commentary of who look good in the fast – mediums and slow speed sections today Keith?
Am hoping to get around the track this afternoon.
Guys you can see the video os Stroll’s gravel exploration here:
https://www.facebook.com/Formula1Portugal/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf
It looks like he was fighting the car out of the corner, and then went on the slippery stuff in the curb and lost it.
Good to see that some people’s comments are just as headache-inducing in Portuguese as in any other language … ^^
trying to read it without understanding? or did you enter the comment section on a facebook page? the latter is not a wise thing to do ahah
Nah, I can read Portuguese fluently, I just don’t do it regularly.
I followed your link and couldn’t resist taking a quick look at the comments. When I reached the second one (“Que erro de amador….”), I remembered that there are annoying people in any given linguistic community.
All quiet on the track at the moment.
Out of curiosity but is that T Biplane Wing on the back of Mercedes legitimate in terms of regulations?
So, in theory I like the T-Wings, but I don’t doubt they’ll ban them next year as they’re essentially slightly more aesthetically pleasing X-Wings born out of pure regulatory oversight.
What I’d love to see come back is blown diffusers, now we’re back in the turbo era, surely, cars creating down-force independent of oncoming airflow is exactly what F1 wants?
I think they’ve got enough downforce for now!
Do you think it might be a good place to establish a trade off then? For instance, ask Ross Brawn’s team of crack aerodynamics interns what they think causes the most amount of dirty air coming off the cars, including uncovered wheels, devise a regulatory solution and if it takes off a number of points of down-force release an equivalent amount of undercar or exhaust blown areas.
I mean, we know what causes dirty air, it’s wings! We know there’s a way of creating downforce without them, we know that wings hurt close racing. Much as I like the idea of this years faster cars, are you not concerned by the possibility that 3/4’s of next years races will be processional?
What I would really like to see is that magical button where you could use your Fuel as a Nitro Boost from the 80s.
Keith have you heard anything from Renault? No action so far
+1 I’m wondering what’s up with Renault as well.
It is French …don’t worry …lol
It’s a very different situation for their team, first totally new car in a while, brand new engine, lots of new staff and operational stuff to figure out.
Growing pains to be expected.
any update on lap count?
http://en.f1i.com/live/
excellent thanks
Np
Some more:
http://www.gpupdate.net/en/testresults/1809/formula-1-test-at-circuit-de-catalunya-28-february-2017/
https://www.autosport.com/live/commentary/id/2508414/formula-1-testing-2017-barcelona-f1-test-day-two
Here are the times after the first three hours:
1. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’21.766 47 laps
2. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.831 (+1.065), 29 laps
3. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’24.366 (+2.600), 20 laps
4. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1’24.488 (+2.722), 12 laps
5. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’24.935 (+3.169), 19 laps
6. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’26.040 (+4.274), 12 laps
7. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’26.161 (+4.395), 27 laps
8. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’26.201 (+4.435), 29 laps
9. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36 2 laps Last updated at: 11:59 CET
Wow, I really hope the McLaren isn’t that slow. It’s starting to get embarrassing for the sport seeing them like this.
why embarrassing for sport? It’s them who dissed AMG. Sport is not responsible for their failure.
It’s a fact that this is not their Real speed.
still it doesn’t answer why it is embarrassing for the sport. if they don’t get their act together they will be a new Sauber. I believe merc will pull out of F1 after they get enough of people whining. Then it will be domination of Ferrari & RB/Renault. Mclaren doesn’t have the right people to get to the top, that’s the fact.
It remains to be seen.
Any news on Ferrari’s rear end? Is there an actual issue?
Given McLaren’s oil tank issue yesterday, and having a quick look at Alonso’s top speed at the end of the straight is it safe to say that the Honda is still running in safe mode?
Probably it’s indeed running in safe mode.
Impossible to read that from the top speed. In fact, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that this top speed is meaningless. If they had really tuned down the engine so much that they lose 25 kph on the straight, it’d be really difficult to achieve a lap time that’s 3 seconds slower than the leaders’. So there’s a mismatch between lap time and top speed, which indicates that the car was actually faster on the straight than the speed trap shows. Probably due to lifting & coasting before the speed trap.
It’s not really that difficult. It’s not only the Top speed difference but probably the Car is running in safe mode in the whole lap.
Well, no, quite the opposite. If the top speed really were that low, the time loss would almost automatically be greater than yesterday’s 3 seconds. The fact that Alonso was ‘only’ 3 seconds slower than Hamilton can only mean one thing: The speed registered by the speed trap cannot be the car’s top speed. It is impossible to tell how fast it really was, and much less if the engine was tuned down more than usual during testing. The only valid conclusion is that the car must’ve been faster than the speed trap shows. Everything else is speculative and/or circular reasoning.
Not a great deal of running right now. Conditions not quite as good as yesterday. Cloud cover has kept a lid on track temperatures – they peaked at 25C half an hour ago but have fallen since. And the wind has increased too. Kvyat has just pitted leaving, inevitably, just the Mercedes of Hamilton still on the track.
Intereating: Hamilton sets the first two sectors purple but backs off to the tune of four seconds in the final sector.
By how much was he up before backing off?
The screens don’t show that.
These cars can do sub 1:20’s even 1:18
MCLAREN TO CHANGE POWER UNIT AGAIN
Vandoorne’s car required a power unit change. They’re currently investigating why they’ve lost power.
I wonder if, after the last couple of years, they are bringing extra PU’s to testing compared to other teams.
They’re going to need 8 Pus just to get through the 1st test session in Barcelona
Mclaren’s lost power from the power unit. They’re still clueless about what caused the issue, as they are clueless about yesterday’s issue. Might be a wrap for them today.
Shouldn’t Honda be able to deliver a good engine by now? We have reached the 3rd year. It’s unacceptable.
I’ve been saying it since the first pre season test of 2015… Honda are actually incapable of delivering the goods.
Hamilton set a 1:20.963 on Super Softs (1s faster than last year’s pole, albeit with a softer tyre)
Still only day 2 of testing as well, I can see them getting into the 18’s by the end of testing for sure.
Agree.
McLaren by then 8 second behind.
Sub 1:20 ‘s no issue for these cars.
Session cut short? Red flag, Ocon stopped
For stat nerds like myself, the fastest testing time at Circuit de Cat on the current layout is 1:18:926 (unofficially) in 2009 by the Brawn – fastest pole time was M.Webber in 2010 1:19:995
Here are the lunchtime times:
1. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’20.983 66 laps
2. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.831 (+1.848), 47 laps
3. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1’23.045 (+2.062), 27 laps
4. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’23.212 (+2.229), 36 laps
5. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’23.523 (+2.540), 31 laps
6. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’25.012 (+4.029), 44 laps
7. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’26.040 (+5.057), 12 laps
8. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’26.201 (+5.218), 29 laps
9. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36: 1’33.741 (+12.758), 5 laps
10. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1 lap Last updated at: 13:15 CET
Is 66 laps a race distance?
It is.
No further running from Williams today due to damage from Stroll’s spin and lack of spare parts.
At least they have his father’s money.
First sign of Renault today, a tweet: “This is actually brilliant.”
What?
Wonder what they’re referring to.??
It’s a comment to a tweet they retwitted, see the original: https://twitter.com/RenaultSportF1/status/836550665669312513
That McLaren keeps disappointing.
What has it done wrong this time?
It has lost all power. Take a bow Mr.Hasegawa… time for you to join Arai San
An inauspicious start to life as an F1 driver for Lance Stroll:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/02/28/williams-scraps-tuesday-running-after-stroll-spin/
Heading over to Williams to hear from him in half an hour.
Enjoy your stroll over to Williams.
Hu-ho!
Am meeting Paul Hembery for an interview later today so what do you want to know about the new tyres for 2017?
Im curious to know the performance in the wet. What should we expect compared to last season?
If the pressure will indeed be lowered down from the 2016 extremes and if he expect the medium/hard to be able to handle a full race distance if the pilot go easy on it
Thanks :)
How does it compare to everything between 2010-2016 in terms of how many laps it’s expected to last and how the performance worsens, I guess? (i.e. cliff or no)
What’s the tyre life they’re aiming for? Can it be expressed in laps per compound on a reference track like Barcelona?
What’s their working window? How hot do they need to be, what’s the difference between the upper and lower limit?
Do they still need to impose tyre pressure windows?
What impact has the wider tyres had on the operational side? Are they harder to make, store, transport, etc. Do all Pirelli employees now have massive biceps from carrying them?!
Since the tyres are more durable, and since there is still a mandatory tyre to be used in the races, which differences will there be between compounds, what benefits will a team have in going for a harder compound for long periods of time, if that is not the fastest one? The goal of my question is to understand what factor will stop teams making the mandatory tyre change, do a couple of laps or whatever, and get back straight away to the prime tyre.
Don’t know if I made myself clear, re-reading it did sound like it, hope you understand what I’m trying to say Keith
Will they still be setting camber limits the teams have to meet?
Keith, please ask Paul if the wider tyres of this year will have a minimum inflation pressure as high as last year’s tyres or are the teams allowed to explore tyre pressures freely.
Thanks
AMuS claiming that not only is the Honda very unreliable it’s actually down on power compared to their claims
What a bold claim!
Ofc an engine that they are having trouble getting to run at all will be down on power..
Not surprised at all. If Honda has mastered one thing… it is actually making an engine that is both unreliable and ridiculously slow
To be honest i think this is kinda expected. If Honda has truly revamped their entire design with the scrapped tokens it means they will be back at 2014 levels of reliability with an entire new package. The power might be there and they might eventually get te reliability but to expect them to be competive the first two days of testing is ridiculous.
Agree. My prediction was that they would match Mercedes’ power output of 2014 as well… and be a good 100 hp down on the nearest rival for most of the season. What I didn’t expect was this disastrous reliability… I thought maybe if they’re copying the Merc layout, they’ve understood the problems Merc encountered and thus will avoid them.
This is also true for Renault, and yet they haven’t changed any PU yet
Another strong start for McLaren. It must be the new color and the naming convention. I’m glad Zak Brown successfully pinpointed the main areas for improvement.
So.. Mario Illien is not working with Renault anymore!
at a rate of one engine per day, Honda will be out of engines after the first weekend!
Just back from hearing from Lance Stroll. I sure hope my voice recorder heard what he said because I could barely hear a word over the engines. Another quiet talker this one, though not in the Raikkonen league (no one is).
Bwoah!
“I could barely hear a word over the engines” – well that’s good to hear, for selfish reasons.
Keith, I’d like your take on how the cars look out on track. I watched quite a lot of fan footage last evening and the cars looked great on track. It looked like some of them, notably Sainz, were twitching and sliding all over the shop. I just finished reading a piece in Autosport which suggests that all the cars look like they are on rails and don’t look any more impressive. What are they like from what you’ve seen.
Surprised at how few laps Red Bull are doing
I just can’t with McLaren. With apologies to Bottas I really want Alonso to get his seat next year. Seeing one of the most talented drivers of the last 20 years stuck back there is just such a waste. Hamilton vs Alonso is this amazing rivalry we’ve actually seen on track in like 2 seasons in the last 10 years!
Ugh. Rant over.
If so Alonsos teammate is an even bigger waste.
U wot mate?
why should I create a headache for myself. I will take Sainz anyday instead of Alonso, with /10 costs. But I understand your frustration, but it’s what you want, not what merc want.
I hope you manage to poach Sainz for your team
and what a complete waste of a super talent like Vandoorne,
i believe he is as talented as Verstappen and he might kill his career in this dog of a car.
i hope McLaren improves soon
You got to hope for these drivers to move to better teams. Mclaren is finished
Any news on McLaren? Are they coming out of the garage or that’s it for the day?
new on McLaren – 2015 Honda issues – 2016 Honda issues – 2017 Honda issues
They haven’t tweeted a time that they are expecting to fix the car in, so my guess is it’s a wrap. Mechanics and Engineers are sitting around twiddling their thumbs and waiting for the idiots in Sakura to finally figure out what their problems have been over the past 2 days.
Has anyone spotted that double T bar on the Williams, one comes from the top edge of the shark fin like Ferrari and the second seems to attach somewhere above the exhaust exit? looks to be flexing massively in the picture.
Yes it has been wobbling it a bit. I heard one was broken yesterday.
Raikkonen goes top:
1. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’20.930 61 laps
2. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’20.983 (+0.053), 66 laps
3. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1’23.045 (+2.115), 32 laps
4. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’23.200 (+2.270), 70 laps
5. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’23.212 (+2.282), 31 laps
6. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’25.012 (+4.082), 44 laps
7. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’25.192 (+4.262), 20 laps
8. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’26.040 (+5.110), 31 laps
9. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’26.201 (+5.271), 12 laps
10. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’26.201 (+5.271), 29 laps
11. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36: 1’26.976 (+6.046), 19 laps Last updated at: 15:19 CET
I dont suppose you have any info on the tyres used for fastest times?
soft
what about now from ferrari ? and the time is on soft…. i don’t know something different this year about ferrari
Mercedes is doing a race simulation on day two.. That’s far more impressive than the times itself. But fingers crossed that Ferrari is closer to Mercedes this year. Hamilton vs Vettel would be amazing.
agreed, and then throw in Max for some real fun :-)
Looking good for 2017, assuming LH and VB are not gameplaying
Don’t forget Kimi and Valterri continuing their harum-scarum battling from last year :D
Race distance simulation for Bottas. Wonder how many pit stops he’ll make?
I’m off to Pirelli in half an hour (do keep your questions coming) so won’t be able to keep a close eye unfortunately.
How much more mechanical grip does he estimate the new cars have?
How much do you think Merc is holding back? I mean redbull obviously holds back, at least I hope so. And how hard ist Ferrari pushing in comparison?
Considering that Toto has said that most of the parts on the car will not feature in Melbourne, I imagine they are probably not pushing that hard. First days of the test is usually systems checks, tuning the engine, comparing with dyno/wind tunnel results.
Well there’s no way we’ve seen anything like a qualifying lap, which is where the bulk of Mercedes’ advantage lies. A key question will be whether Ferrari or Renault can approach the kind of performance they have there. Keep in mind last year Ferrari were quickest after testing. That alone suggests a margin of error in the order of a full second. But remember also Renault brought a big engine upgrade after just a few races and that was when Red Bull became contenders for victory. So I wouldn’t write off any of the top three at this point.
@Keith I cannot agree more, but also last year Mercedes was using Mediums the whole time, so comparison is more difficult. This year Ferrari actually beats Mercedes’ time on slower tyres, which can mean everything or nothing, but still something to keep hope alive for this season.
Ferrari fans might find some comfort in the fact that Kimi was fastest in a set of soft tyres, while the mercs did their best laps in sets of ultra soft
Still, not drawing any conclusions at the moment
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At what point do we start thinking Ferrari actually made a really good car?
When we start blaming the strategists instead of the aerodynamicists for them not winning races.
Very droll, but last year we blamed the strategists a few times and it was far from a great car ;-)
It was a great car when the strategists screwed up
When Raikkonen gets pole in Australia?
Thanks for your feedback guys, off to hear what Mr Hembery has to say. And hopefully score some good coffee.
Any news from the McLaren garage?
Vandoorne still in the pits. They are pretty silent so far.
Alonso and Vandoorne combined have 59 laps on their back not even full race distance.
new on McLaren – 2015 Honda issues – 2016 Honda issues – 2017 Honda issues – 2018 TBC likely Honda issues
2018 just confirmed: Honda issues
2019: Signs Mercedes Engine deal.
2019: Renault Engine Dominates season.
Whats this?
Here are the times with just over an hour and a half left today:
1. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’20.930 78 laps
2. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’20.983 (+0.053), 66 laps
3. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’22.200 (+1.270), 56 laps
4. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1’22.509 (+1.579), 43 laps
5. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’22.986 (+2.056), 75 laps
6. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’23.200 (+2.270), 92 laps
7. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’24.139 (+3.209), 26 laps
8. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’25.012 (+4.082), 45 laps
9. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36: 1’25.983 (+5.053), 33 laps
10. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’26.040 (+5.110), 12 laps
11. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’26.201 (+5.271), 29 laps Last updated at: 16:23 CET
That’s just crazy how Mercedes effectivly gets double testing days, as both drivers drive the same amount as other teams in total.
Wow – fair play to McLaren managing to get 29 laps out of the Honda in one day. They’ve almost reached double figures across 2 days of testing!
Big improvement from Giovinazzi who finds 1.3 seconds to go eighth, 1’24.617.
it seems Mercedes are ahead by abit. Thankfully Ferrari have upped their game.
Red bull dont appear to have the pace of Ferrari and seems Renault’s engine will be there downfall.
Williams are looking third best team currently. As a Force India fan, im abit concern with our pace, looks like we are 5/6 fastest team.
oh well, too early to tell
Hell no. Red Bull and Ferrari are both quicker than the Williams. At best Williams in P4
I think you need to pay more attention.
I don’t think speeds and lap times are a fair indication of speed just yet. A lot of teams might still be doing evaluations and similar programs. Ask a McLaren fan who might say that they’d be pleased just to see the car run.
Autosport assessment of Bottas’ race simulation: I spent a lot of Bottas’s race run watching from trackside, and it looked…messy. He had quite a bit of understeer early on when the car was heavy, and it was moving around on him in the corners.
Very surprised to hear this TBH
lewis has probably left some underpant-creme for him as a suprise.
+1. lol
Looking at stint pace, RB and Mercedes sort of level. Also, Ferrari looking better on track according to the same autosport.com people
Interesting…cold track?
“Some interesting footage has surfaced from Bottas’ afternoon…”
http://www.gpupdate.net/en/testresults/1809/formula-1-test-at-circuit-de-catalunya-28-february-2017/
Interesting. Rather similar to Stroll’s mistake, but apparently not a show stopper. Lucky escape!
I hope this means these cars aren’t just physically more demanding to drive, but also trickier.
Kvyat moves up to sixth, here’s the times with an hour left to go:
1. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’20.930 92 laps
2. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’20.983 (+0.053), 66 laps
3. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’22.200 (+1.270), 67 laps
4. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1’22.509 (+1.579), 57 laps
5. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’22.986 (+2.056), 80 laps
6. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’23.081 (+2.151), 57 laps
7. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’23.200 (+2.270), 92 laps
8. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’24.139 (+3.209), 43 laps
9. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36: 1’24.617 (+3.687), 41 laps
10. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’26.040 (+5.110), 12 laps
11. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’26.201 (+5.271), 30 laps Last updated at: 16:59 CET
Paul Hembery was very generous with his time, got over a quarter of an hour on the recorder. The full Q&A, covering many of the talking points you raised, will be published here later. In the meantime a brief portion will go up shortly.
Keith I’d be interested to know where you think F1 Fanatic comes in the pecking order of other F1 (or general) media. If Paul Hembery is giving you that much time it suggests you’re quite high up. But how do the other journos treat you? Are you part of their gang or a “johnny-come-lately”?
Cool. :)
How was the coffee?
Who has topped the speed traps so far today?
Verstappen 282 kmh.
That sounds like finish line speed.
I think everyone needs to give a round of applause to mclaren’s progress! They managed 1 whole lap more than they did yesterday! #progress
I think everyone needs to give a round of stiff drinks to the McLaren engineers, poor buggers!
I hope to be wrong but… McLaren is in a big, big trouble.
Ten minutes left, on the look-out for anyone trying a late flier…
K-Mag on 112 laps, that’s impressive
Indeed. And just 1.2s off the pace at the moment.
Haas looks good.
I’m impressed by haas in general, they look strong if you leave out the usual top contenders, k-mag looks very comfortable in his new ride
Damn I wasn’t there to propose question for the Pirelli meeting, do anyone knows what happens at the tire end of life ? Cliff or quicker decline ? Difficult to figure out from lap times right now, not sure anyone has pushed the tire to that point.
Yeah I think you answered your own question. Sounds like the teams aren’t even running what will be their race trim of aero packaging, so, much to be determined but everything under control for now.
Thanks again for joining in today guys – see you for more tomorrow.
Morning once more, guys!
The only thing I’m interested in today is whether McLaren-Honda can complete a race distance or not.
Let’s hope so, otherwise it is really going to be a painful (start to?) the year.
Fingers crossed
I’m hoping with you guys. McLaren-Honda needs this mileage.
I’ve heard rumours that if they don’t they will change their slogan to “Honda, the power we can only dream about”
It still doesn’t worry me to be honest, it’s testing, and as long as they are ready for Melbourne, everything is good. We need more teams at the front
There’s news that they are already on their last PU for this weekend, although a new engine has been shipped from Sakura already. Today.. if the engine breaks down, they will have to call it a day
Hello everyone, ready for day three. Tomorrow is supposed to be a wet weather test so today may be the last dry running we get.
No, circuit will only be drained in the morning. It should be dry in the afternoon.
Yeah that’s what they’re saying but depends how much water goes down and how well it dries. And whether it rains! But that’s not forecast.
Buenos días
Have Pirelli mandated a certain number of laps on wet tyres Keith? If so, will McHonda be able to do those laps? (rubbing a bit of salt)
Sorry, they do like Spanish over there, it has to be Catalan
Bon dia
I don’t believe they have, no. But the teams are going to want this data.
BTW, since Illien doesn’t work with Renault anymore, could he cooperate with Honda?
Honda is against using talent from outside the company…. because they clearly have an abundance of knowledge and expertise within their own organisation
That’s a good call, but they’ve preferred not to bring outside talent in so far. Perhaps that’s part of the problem, though, and their recent setbacks may prompt a rethink.
Always good to have a picture of myself looking gormless on my own website, here at a session with Verstappen yesterday (in case you’re wondering, I managed to get someone closer to the front to push my voice recorder in a bit further). Verstappen basically answered the same two questions about how quick is car is and how difficult overtaking will be from the various television crews:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/02/28/2017-pre-season-testing-day-two-in-pictures/motor-racing-formula-one-testing-test-one-day-2-barcelona-spain-210/
Damn Keith! That kind of looks like me when someone brings a birthday cake to the workplace
:-D
To get closer to racers, we should learn from Martin Brundle. Somehow he manages to talk to drivers on the grid even when they’re busy.
Is it you, the blue color jacket? (behind the french beard fellow)
I was wearing a blue and white striped shirt.
Big day for Mc-Honda today.
Last of the three engines they brought.(new one is on its way)
But according to news in Japan they will have to redesign the oil pan. Due to the higher lateral g-force, the pump is starving of oil during high speed turns which causes the engine to run dry momentarily. The sensors show low oil pressure for a second, then it comes back once the car is goin straight again. That doesn’t cause instant damage but resduces engine life dramatically and is believed to be the cause of power loss suffered yesterday.
McLaren will also have to redesign some body work to accommodate the new oil tank. Unbelievable mistake by a company that also makes MotoGP engines(albeit completely different departments)
Thanks for the news! It’s indeed difficult to conceive that such apparently basic mistake can be done at that stage (I’m not an expert though).
Green light!
Ericsson Kvyat and Bottas out on track!
Glad to finally see RoGro take the car for a spin. Curious to see the lap times he can put in.
Rosberg looks on with regret
Palmer’s managed to get running straight away in the Renault after the problems the team had yesterday morning (another one with parts shortages):
https://www.racefans.net/2017/02/28/palmer-astonished-by-mercedes-and-ferraris-mileage/
I could be wrong but I was under the impression the brake duct was an upgrade rather than a shortage
Celis makes his first appearance in the Force India. Wonder if they’ve got one of their regular drivers on standby to take over in case he struggles? These cars are a lot more demanding than last year’s and when I saw the three of them at the launch last week Celis didn’t look nearly as built as Perez or Ocon (who did more than a race distance yesterday).
Good point. By the way, I’m amazed that Mercedes are the only ones who regularly switch their drivers after the lunch break. Would make sense for all the teams to do that: Less fatigue for the drivers, more even distribution of mileage if one of your days is rotten.
Wonder if Ferrari may go that way soon. Mercedes are doing around 40% more running per day even than them, though.
Yeah, I wonder if they could’ve put in more laps with a driver change. Any chance you’ll get a word with a Ferrari representative, or are they staying true to their ‘low profile’ approach?
Mclaren out for an installation lap.. Losing engine power in 3..2..1…
Alonso posts McLaren’s first lap of the day. Boullier and Hasegawa doing a press call this afternoon. That’s going to be standing room only.
Williams working on the car? Still waiting for parts?
Not clear – they have fired the engine…
Incidentally it’s a very busy day in terms of interviews today – Hamilton and Vettel among those we’re expecting to hear from. Unfortunately Ricciardo’s briefing clashes with Hamilton’s but as Hamilton is only doing one meeting with the written media I’m obviously prioritising that. Heard from Ricciardo on day one:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/02/27/ricciardo-says-red-bull-has-a-lot-more-to-come/
It looks like Mercedes have scaled back Hamilton’s media commitments this year, perhaps in light of that tiff at Suzuka.
Red flag: Celis has just driven past me so it isn’t him.
It’s Palmer. Celis is conspicuously miles off the pace at the moment.
It’s Palmer .. put it in the gravel
I thought Ricciardo and Verstappen were going to share today and tomorrow. Having only one driver get used to the new wets makes little sense, doesn’t it?
I see where you’re coming from, but I expect the data will be more for Pirelli than the drivers.
What do you believe Eric Boullier and that Hasegawa guy are gonna say in their press call?
Initially I took that Renault for a McLaren. Both liveries share similarities!
Same – maybe I just expected it to be a McLaren ;)
In some lights they do look quite similar. The McLaren looks a lot better than some of the launch pictures showed. I still think the livery could use a little tidying up, but it’s not as bad as some are saying.
What I really don’t get is why Renault have spoiled their lovely livery with all that extra black. From a heat rejection point of view alone it seems an odd step. I wish they’d just stick the 2010 livery back on the thing!
Indeed 2010 Renault livery was gorgeous! Maybe one of the two will adapt its one
Black both emits and absorbs heat the most. As F1 engines generate a lot of heat, black bodywork emits it the most!
Alonso’s notched up a fourth lap in the McLaren. Baby steps this morning. He’s just come back in on a set of ultra-softs.
Bottas getting down to some serious lapping with a 1’23.5770.
That’s two consecutive purple laps for Bottas, now on a 1’22.816.
I’m pretty sure we’ll see some sub 1:20 laps today.. My bet is Ferrari will be the first to break the limit
A 1’22.222 now from Vettel. That could only be more satisfying if Button had posted it.
:( Button
Needs Richie Benaud commentating for that one (or is that just an Aussie joke?).
Has anyone done a 1:23.456 any time?
Vettel’s done for this run. Alonso meanwhile is up to eight laps. Ricciardo beginning a flying lap.
Times so far:
1. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.222 16 laps
2. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’22.816 (+0.594), 15 laps
3. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’24.946 (+2.724), 12 laps
4. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’30.108 (+7.886), 7 laps
5. Alfonso Celis – Force India VJM10: 1’44.478 (+22.256), 6 laps
6. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 8 laps
7. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 6 laps
8. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 4 laps
9. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 4 laps Last updated at: 10:08 CET
So Keith do you think the absolute lap time at Barcelona is going to be taken today? its a 1:19.954
It wouldn’t be fair of me to answer that as I had an interesting piece of information along those lines yesterday which I’m going to share with you all shortly. Just putting the first image gallery of the day up…
sounds intriguing!
hi Keith from autosport.com the FIA asked one team to change the suspension system do we know which team? :)
Didn’t Barrichello set a 1:18.9 during 2009 pre-season testing?
A busy start for Ferrari and Mercedes so far, both already up to 20 laps. Kvyat running well too in the Toro Rosso. As you’d imagine a lot of teams doing aero runs with substantial rigs – lots of pictures of those here:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/01/2017-pre-season-testing-day-three-in-pictures/
McLaren are steadily chipping away with individual runs. Alonso up to nine laps now and has just gone down the start/finish straight so might even be attempted a timed one now.
Still no sign of Stroll in the Williams though. And Palmer hasn’t reappeared in the Renault since his spin.
Hold the phone – Stroll is now back out in the Williams, just under an hour and a half into today’s test.
Uh-Oh… Keep a cool head Lance
Meanwhile Bottas has lowered today’s best to a 1’21.632, seven-tenths off the best of the test which was set by Raikkonen.
Keith, what are your thoughts on the non-championship race that Ross has spoken about? I really like the thought of it…
Away from the test, here’s a nice bit of breaking news about the Canadian Grand Prix:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/01/canadian-grand-prix-deal-extended-to-2029/
Fun Fact – Mclaren is the only team to have done more untimed laps than timed laps so far in this test
It’s best to do some tests instead of timing to see what’s going on and find a solution than go full throttle and the engine blows up.
And we know there’s a fairly good chance it’ll blow up.
Grosjean is on the track today and will be doing the wet weather test tomorrow. He’s concerned the wider tyres will increase the risk of aquaplaning (and still getting greif from his team for his Brazil crash):
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/01/grosjean-wary-of-more-aquaplaning-with-wider-tyres/
That concept is not as simple. If we are talking about slicks, definitely, you have a bigger area, and of course the chances of aquaplaning increase.
But wit wet weather tyres and intermediates it will depend on the grooves, their design, efficiency on moving water and not to forget that the cars have more downforce and therefore will be able to break trough the water. Also contact patch does not increases proportionally in the wet tyres as it does with slicks, once again it depends on the tyre grooves
Bottas does 1m21.099s – Softs
Vettel does 1m21.609s – Mediums (improves his 1st day time on Mediums by 0.27s)
Times after two hours:
1. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’21.099 32 laps
2. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’21.609 (+0.510), 34 laps
3. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’23.956 (+2.857), 15 laps
4. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’24.190 (+3.091), 21 laps
5. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’25.174 (+4.075), 25 laps
6. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’27.848 (+6.749), 7 laps
7. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’28.867 (+7.768), 7 laps
8. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’30.083 (+8.984), 14 laps
9. Alfonso Celis – Force India VJM10: 1’44.478 (+23.379), 6 laps
10. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17 4 laps Last updated at: 11:01 CET
The sun’s out and the track’s quite a bit hotter than yesterday – already nudging 25C.
Track temps hopefully allowing the tyres to approach their prime operational window, then. At least, closer than the past two days.
Rosberg’s made a “celebrity” appearance in the Mercedes garage today. Do we think this will be one of several visits throughout the season to potentially play mind games with Lewis ‘from beyond the grave’ as it were?? :P
I don’t think he’ll be playing mind games. He’s probably there for genuine support. Don’t forget that he and Hamilton have known each other since karting. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see more smiles from them both now that they’re no longer competing against each other.
as Illiria mentions, Rosberg doesn’t have the need anymore for that kind of thing. I think it is really more about showing up to have a chat with the team, greet everyone, thank everyone etc. A bit of feel good for the whole team. Including Lewis
Agreed, just a tongue-in-cheek comment really. Although Rosberg’s presence would inevitably convey memories of the 2016 season for Lewis. Whether that would motivate him or distract him remains to be seen.
I think the Opposite, it will probably leave Rosberg wishing he was there!
Keith, do you know, if someone is doing live “radio” broadcast from the tests? A la WRC Radio style? Would it be ok with FOM and there’s just not enough of interest for such thing?
Audio is also owned by the broadcasters so it’s up to them to provide this if there’s demand. I’m not allowed to – for instance, posting the audio from the interviews I’m doing would break the rules.
Keith is there any sign of concern at RBR or are they playing things close to the chest?
I get the feeling that they’re not really all that confident in either their PU or set-up as they seem to be doing minimal laps compared to Mercedes & Ferrari.
Any opinions so far on title?
Imo so far…..
1- Hamilton , by a distance.(not a fan)
2- very tight between Seb, valtari, max and ricciardo(any order possible)
After that – kimi
Best of rest- Carlos sainz jnr
Thinking of putting decent bet on Hamilton? Anyone to talk me out of it please?
I’ve put £1 on Alonso at 20-1 and £1 on Vandoorne at 120-1. Could have been inspired, but looking at Honda’s oil situation, is clearly a waste of £2!
If it was horse racing NR would be beside their names ;-)
Haha! And then turned into glue.
Must say I was might impressed by Ocon’s performance yesterday – still think he might end up being the surprise of the season.
Ericcson in the Sauber put in a 1:22.636 on the softs. That’s pretty impressive pace form Sauber as well
Bottas pushes the benchmark further on with a 1’20.107. The target lap time to be five seconds quicker than the 2015 Spanish GP pole time is 1’19.681, so we’re now less than half a second off that. The usual caveats about tyre types apply, of course.
Celis improves to a 1’26.369, 6.2s off the pace, 3.8s off the best time by Force India.
…and now manages a 1’25.829 so he’s doing appreciably better.
1:23.7
At the other end of the table Bottas sets the first sub-80s lap and leaves the benchmark 0.2 seconds off the target five-second lap time improvement. He did a 1’19.838 on super-softs.
Lap count please?
Bottas – 75, Ric – 48, Palmer – 51, Vet – 69, Ericsson – 54, Stroll – 56, Celis – 39, Alonso – 28, Kvyat – 31, Grosjean – 27.
Difference between Soft and Super-Soft seems to be about 0.3 here. Bottas and Ericsson both improved their times by that amount.
1. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’19.838 57 laps
2. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’21.609 (+1.771), 48 laps
3. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’22.326 (+2.488), 38 laps
4. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’22.351 (+2.513), 31 laps
5. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’22.382 (+2.544), 31 laps
6. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’23.387 (+3.549), 29 laps
7. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’23.834 (+3.996), 25 laps
8. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’24.190 (+4.352), 21 laps
9. Alfonso Celis – Force India VJM10: 1’25.524 (+5.686), 21 laps
10. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’25.898 (+6.060), 11 laps Last updated at: 12:07 CET
If you order the list by number of laps, you get the same order!
Ericsson with last year’s Ferrari engine laps 0.2s off Vettel’s time in the current Ferrari. That gives you a good idea how representative these times are.
Same tyres?
No. Ferrari mediums, Sauber super softs.
SS for Ericsson and Mediums once again for Vettel
Can’t believe that the Sauber with 2016 Ferrari engine is only 2 seconds down on Mercedes’ 2017 challenger on same tires.
Sauber probably went flat out with Mercs holding a lot back.
Another improvement from Bottas leaves him just 0.024s off breaking the five-second lap time target. It’s going to fall soon…
that was on a set of ultra softs btw
That’s interesting, considering that they only used two different compounds during the entire pre-season testing in 2016. The only tyre they haven’t sampled yet is the hard, right?
1. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’19.705 75 laps
2. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’21.153 (+1.448), 48 laps
3. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’21.396 (+1.691), 51 laps
4. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’21.609 (+1.904), 69 laps
5. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’21.824 (+2.119), 54 laps
6. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’22.351 (+2.646), 55 laps
7. Alfonso Celis – Force India VJM10: 1’23.781 (+4.076), 39 laps
8. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’23.832 (+4.127), 28 laps
9. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’23.952 (+4.247), 30 laps
10. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’25.133 (+5.428), 27 laps
11. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1 lap Last updated at: 13:02 CET
Stroll took another stroll through the gravel
LOL….
wasn’t he in a in-lap? the session ended right?
doesn’t seem to stop him spinning
I still wonder what is Nico Rosberg doing, really, with what he is doing..
I have to say i really am not a fan of ex f1 drivers hanging around the paddock like a bad smell, something about it really grinds me.
Had a sponsor commitment yesterday, from what I read.
What’s wrong with that? Retired players from every sport always come back to hang around, F1 is certainly no exception.
“Nico Rosberg has returned to Mercedes for 2017 with the F1 world champion accepting a role as ambassador for the team.”
And I note the pic Keith posted amongst today’s gallery of Nico looking at a Red Bull in the pits and thought yeah, nothing wrong with an extra set of expert eyes for Merc these days.
Thanks for the flow of updates Keith it is much appreciated sir.
No problem – it’s always a bit difficult when there’s media sessions going on at the same time. Just been quizzing Gene Haas.
Vettel doing a 1:21 on the mediums earlier in the week means a 1:19 on ultrasoft by Bottas is still a conservative lap? With 4 tyres to choose from, a 2 second difference in performance between the faster and slowest options seems unlikely.
If Pirelli expect them to lap in the 1:17s on the yellow-marked soft tyres in qualifying, none of these laps are anywhere near representative.
However, a 2 second difference between soft and ultrasoft doesn’t sound wrong. Keep in mind that the tarmac and layout of the Circuit de Catalunya are extremely abrasive, which makes it rather difficult to keep the ultrasoft tyre alive while pushing.
Over at autosport.com Gary Anderson seems impressed with the way the Ferrari handles corners, says it does so better than the Merc. I hope he’s right, F1 needs more than one team fighting for wins.
Races should indeed be an absolute treat if the Mercedes were to maintain (albeit reduced) its qualifying superiority but the Ferrari being the quicker car on race-day!
I may be in school but testing is still pretty interesting to follow
Get back to your study!!;-)
1. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’19.705 75 laps
2. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’21.153 (+1.448), 67 laps
3. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’21.396 (+1.691), 51 laps
4. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’21.517 (+1.812), 75 laps
5. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’21.824 (+2.119), 32 laps
6. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’22.351 (+2.646), 31 laps
7. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’23.137 (+3.432), 22 laps
8. Alfonso Celis – Force India VJM10: 1’23.781 (+4.076), 36 laps
9. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’23.832 (+4.127), 39 laps
10. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’23.952 (+4.247), 31 laps
11. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’24.029 (+4.324), 15 laps
12. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’25.133 (+5.428), 27 laps
13. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’25.688 (+5.983), 15 laps
Last updated at: 15:06 CET
Glad Redbull are chasing the laps rather then lap times.
Vettel’s now done Ferrari’s best time of the test so far, a 1’20.572, that moves him up to second behind Bottas. He’s on softs.
1:21.099 Bottas Best Soft tires time.
At their current rate Mercedes are going to reach 2,000km before most teams have hit 1,000km.
I know it’s too early to make any sort of rational conclusions, but it is appalling to see the McLaren being slower than the Renault or even the Sauber.
I think McLaren, or Honda in this case might be playing the safe route after the first two day’s issues.
We can’t take pre season tests as conclusive, but it’s very likely that Mclaren will be battling at the back of the grid along with the Saubers come Melbourne. It’s like 2015 all over again, but this time, there isn’t a Manor to fight.. but a Sauber.
It is often more important to get consistent lap times in order to correlate the data properly. Also they may well be sandbagging while they check to see if their engine issues have gone away as there is little point in doing a fast lap and blowing the engine and therefore possibly ruining the whole test. The early tests are often used for checking systems, car characteristics and correlating the wind tunnel and simulator results. If they are still this far off the leaders come the last test day before the season starts then yes they have a problem, but right now we have no idea what tests they are running.
Vettel gets within a quarter of a second of Bottas with a run on soft tyres. Mercedes shadowing Ferrari today.
…and Vettel goes second on a 1m19.952s on soft rubber. That’s 0.247s off Bottas, who set his time on ultra-softs.
From AS.
That is a ridiculously fast lap on soft tyres. He could break in to the 1:18s with ultrasofts on. I’m sure Mercedes are looking at his lap right now with a little bit of surprise
That was the first lap of a new run. Have to see how many he does. Will be great if he can do more than 5.
Palmer reports back on Pirelli’s new rubber which it seems is very hard indeed:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/01/new-tyres-feel-two-steps-harder-palmer/
Massive picture gallery update just gone up:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/01/2017-pre-season-testing-day-three-in-pictures/
We’ve got a mini-race going on now. Sainz chases Ericsson down the straight, pursued by Alonso who’s just improved his time again, 1’23.146. He’s also hit the 40-lap mark.
Mercedes doing another race simulation. Again, that’s more impressive than the times itself.
That’s a rapid improvement for Honda already, given the past two-day disadvantage. Hope that’s going to be the standard scenario from now.
Mercedes have just passed the 2,000 kilometre mark. Only two other teams have done more than 1,000km (Ferrari and Sauber):
Mercedes – 2006.305km
Ferrari – 1508.22km
Sauber – 1024.1km
Red Bull – 958.93km
Haas – 958.93km
Williams – 921.69km
Renault – 884.45km
Toro Rosso – 814.625km
Force India – 763.42km
McLaren – 521.36km
Meanwhile, McLaren marching strongly to the lowest mileage title. :(
An improvement over yesterday.. :)
Gotta look at the positives.
That’s the only thing they’re capable of winning along with DNF and Engine Blow up titles.
I’ve heard that McLaren also hold the record for having the biggest gym, nothing but punching bags.
Ha… Good one. How you not to punch a team that has done half the mileage of Sauber ?
red flag….
Sainz has stopped at Turn 4
Wonder if Hamilton will do an ultra soft run now the red flag stopped his race run.
Stroll into the wall!!
Oh Stroll… Are we going to have to start calling you Strollonado?
LMAO!!!
Let’s not troll Stroll
*slow clap*
How about lance troll?
Somebody should reserve
http://hasstrollcrashedtoday.com/ domain just in case u know…
Is stroll ok?
Reported as driver ok. Doesn’t look like a big one from the pics. Think he dropped it getting on the power and just bumped the wall.
Watching Vettel through Turn 1-3 is definitely my ‘wow’ factor of the day. The Ferrari is just planted and, even on used tyres, it doesn’t budge one millimetre off line.
Gary Anderson
intriguing.
He also said Hamilton is having to lift off significantly to make it through turn 3, lack of front end grip.
Yeah as the laps go on the Merc is struggling for grip the Ferrari not so much. RBR are also a little wobbly. This could be an interesting season. Ferrari are impressing.
Although now that he’s out on a fresh set of softs with less fuel, Anderson’s saying it looks a lot better round turn 3 and more stable. I think if you take any car on the grid, Ferrari included, and simulate first-stint race conditions then the car is always going to be twitchy when pushed close to the limits, despite improved aero.
I really hope Ferrari can carry this form into the season and if so the strategic decision don’t put everything to shame again
Stroll looks like perfect replacement of Maldonado.
Still under red flag conditions here in Barcelona, thanks to Stroll’s stroll.
Sorry :(
Oy, copycat
Haha was that your comment?
Haha, yeah, but way earlier. Great minds…
Looks like he’s spun towards the inside of the circuit at the exit of turn five. That’s his third error in two days. Massa went off on day one as well, so let’s not rule out the possibility the FW40 is a bit tricky.
That might be being a bit generous to Stroll however. I asked him yesterday if he was going to leave more of a margin today due to Williams’ parts shortage:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/02/28/stroll-wary-of-spare-parts-shortage-after-early-end-to-first-day/
I feel bad for the lad. Probably overwhelmed.
The session is live again and Hamilton presses ‘resume’ on his saved game.
Any updates on the redbull Keith.. cheers.
I’m afraid not I’m only just back from a conference with Boullier and Hasegawa. I can tell you Vandoorne’s engine from yesterday has been sent back to Japan for investigation.
Ricciardo’s still third on a 1’21.153, he’s done 67 laps.
Got the first pictures of Stroll’s crash:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/01/2017-pre-season-testing-day-three-in-pictures/
Something tells me Stroll is going to provide us with a lot of entertainment in the upcoming season.
Feel like he’ll have incredible races and terrible races. Not many inbetween. Seems like the kinda who could get a shock podium one week then take out two other drivers the next
Aaah.. like good ol Pastor.
Lance Kvyat?
Lance Murdock from The Simpsons.
Maldonado 2.0
Alonso is nowhere near being able to apply the throttle through Turn 3. He has to have a big and long lift, but it’s not just to get the front end to bite, it looks like a lack of overall grip
Gary Anderson
Should we suppose that this is because of past to days lack of data for setup?
http://www.hasStrollCrashedToday.com?
https://twitter.com/keithcollantine/status/836960386050056192
It has to be done! Probably less work to leave the ‘Yes he has” page as the default though!
Keith, what is your impressions on McLaren-Honda today?
I’m just writing up some quotes from their media session! But Alonso’s three laps off a race distance which has got to be an improvement. And these aren’t massively slow laps either, they appear to be in the ballpark. Causes for a little optimism, though it could hardly have got worse.
What were your thoughts looking at the car trackside? Compared to the big three? Gary Anderson pretty much summed it up as rubbish
Keith, I’d like to know this too, if possible.
You beat my post Keith. Thank you. Really hoping Alonso has a better year this year. Btw Iirc the link on F1fanatic to live testing says 1st day and not 3rd. I didn’t know if that’s how you wanted it.
One hour left of running today.
1. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’19.705 75 laps
2. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’19.952 (+0.247), 112 laps
3. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’21.153 (+1.448), 67 laps
4. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’21.396 (+1.691), 51 laps
5. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’21.824 (+2.119), 113 laps
6. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’22.216 (+2.511), 74 laps
7. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’22.351 (+2.646), 98 laps
8. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’22.598 (+2.893), 64 laps
9. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’22.884 (+3.179), 43 laps
10. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’23.137 (+3.432), 32 laps
11. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’23.540 (+3.835), 32 laps
12. Alfonso Celis – Force India VJM10: 1’23.619 (+3.914), 54 laps
13. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’23.952 (+4.247), 31 laps
Last updated at: <17:02 CET
Good day for Sauber, 113 laps so far
And for williams too, 98 laps and two crash simulation
haha
A further thought – the spread of times between the fastest and slowest cars at the moment is just 3.251 seconds. I reckon it’ll be way more than that in Melbourne.
That day can’t come quick enough.
+1
Keith, don’t know if you saw my other post. The F1 Fanatic site when clicking to get to live testing, says, follow the first day and not the 3rd day. I wasn’t sure if that’s how you wanted it. I thought I’d get a rehash of the 1st days events, went looking elsewhere, eventually came back.
Are Stroll’s offs indicative of the fact these brawnier cars are more challenging to muscle around a circuit? Perhaps an inexperienced 18yo simply isn’t up to the task in this revised formula, and the ‘age-to-F1’ regression has now reached its zenith.
The kid must be a nightmare for his engineers right now. I hope he’ll get his things together at least for Williams.
Well really in fairness he is a kid and he has only had a few sessions in F1…new everything…tires tricky to warm up especially when it’s been cool there…the car perhaps without all it’s new gear on…let’s give the lad a chance. And he’s not in a top 3 car.
Good thing Stroll brought a lot of spending money…
Might not be enough if he wrecks a car every day for the rest of the season.
Good point.
The team might spend that on earplugs to protect against mechanics and factory staff screaming in frustration…
I think he’ll leave from humiliation before that happens.
I had to do it… https://hasstrollcrashedyet.com
You bought it?
Yeah… I buy far too many domains, this one seemed worth it!
You’ve got a rival, by the way:
https://twitter.com/keithcollantine/status/836967706414968832
I went to market first – surely that means something :)
Congratulations! It would be good to give a little additional info. Turn 5 Circuit De Catalunya. Crash count – 2
Consider it done :)
Strollololololol. Love it.
He’s on a roll.
Goodone :)
The Ferrari has stopped on the pit straight.
Thanks for joining in as always guys, see you for more tomorrow. Am about to dash off to try to attend Vettel and Hamilton’s sole media briefings of the week, which are taking place within five minutes of each other…
Cheers Keith!
Hamilton did 95 laps, with Bottas 75 in the morning that’s 170 laps on the day. Huge. Mercedes and Ferrari appears to be veey good. Red Bull not showing what they can do I assume.
Good morning from the Circuit de Catalunya everybody. Wet tyre testing is the plan for the morning and the track has been drenched accordingly – though I have to say it looks more like intermediate conditions and it’s the full wet weather tyres they want to test.
They’re sending a few more tankers around to soak the track. Thrilling pictures coming soon.
What time does it start? The day will be shorter today?
No the plan is the usual. But expect to see a lot less running in the morning.
Do the thrilling racing tankers feature thrilling shark fins too this year?
Took a quick stroll to Williams (pun intended) where there’s not a lot happening at the moment – last night it was unclear if they would be able to run at all today:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/01/williams-not-blaming-stroll-for-crash-but-team-may-not-run-tomorrow/
If there is a team that needs wet weather data surely that teams is Williams. Not looking good
Asked some of the drivers yesterday how useful today’s wet weather testing would be, here’s what they had to say. Grosjean gave some very interesting detail on the problems they had in Brazil last year:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/02/wet-weather-test-wont-be-representative-say-drivers/
As for the teams, Guenther Steiner at Haas was saying yesterday they’d much rather have more dry running. They should get that by the afternoon.
This just in from Williams – as suspected they won’t be running today:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/02/williams-will-not-run-on-thursday-after-stroll-crash/
and we are green
Verstappen splashes by and does a 1’45.735.
Track temperature is 15C which is perhaps not quite as low as some feared it would be.
No Splinker system? using trucks is not the same as rain.
Probably a hint that they are not starting a race when it is raining. This is more of a post shower race scenario :)
Probally your right as rain during an race is rare.
So…who will be the first to chance it on slicks? Oh…wait…
Will be interesting to see if anyone is brave enough to do it. Will be a useful test to see how soon your car can get comfortable on it.
I am hoping a few teams do it once the last of the water tanks are emptied.
Lol i mean sprinkler system
Aaah! Every time I see the Renault I immediately think it’s the McLaren. I wish the liveries were coordinated so no two teams looked similar.
Sauber have Giovinazzi running today. Talk about in at the deep end: A few weeks ago he hadn’t driven an F1 car, now he’s driving these monsters on a wet track. Respect. He seems a nice guy too, haven’t had a chance to hear much from him yet.
After Brazil, Verstappen shouldn’t be testing the wet tyres, he will say they are just fine
Is it scheduled to ‘rain’ all day? or are the ‘showers’ expected to stop this afternoon
yes, the “forecast” doesn’t “show” any rain in the afternoon
“thanks”
Verstappen on inters already. That didn’t took long
Vandoorne onto intermediates, Giovinazzi still running wets.
People already in intermediates, only 4 teams lapping. Mercedes didn’t even bother. Not exactly the test they were hoping for I presume.
How is the track Keith? I suspect is drying quickly
Lots of chat around Stroll today. Here’s some thoughts from last year on whether he was making the switch to F1 too soon:
https://www.racefans.net/2016/10/20/f1-or-gp2-in-2017-stroll-should-take-his-own-advice/
Mercedes are experiencing a technical issue! I repeat, Mercedes are experiencing a technical issue!
brace for comments regarding Rosberg’s visit yesterday
Hamilton is already composing a tweet he’ll later delete
i think the only technical issue they are having is not being able to force Hamilton in to the car
Here’s the first batch of pictures from today. The cars look fantastic out there:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/02/2017-pre-season-testing-day-four-in-pictures/
Sun is really coming out now, and dry track. (But no cars)
Now they come again, Ferrari RBR, haas
After a small break, Ferrari, Redbull, and Haas are out.
Heard from Hamilton yesterday who stuck up for Stroll and talked about how much he enjoys driving the new cars:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/02/hamilton-defends-stroll-its-not-an-easy-car-to-drive/
Today’s times mean even less than usual but here they are anyway:
1. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’38.286 21 laps
2. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’40.803 (+2.517), 13 laps
3. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’40.961 (+2.675), 8 laps
4. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’41.826 (+3.540), 18 laps
5. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’42.842 (+4.556), 9 laps
6. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36: 1’42.940 (+4.654), 11 laps
7. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1 lap
Last updated at: 10:25 CET
Bottas went for a visit at Williams : https://twitter.com/GPUpdate/status/837235230553563136/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
The williams engineer face says it all: “I miss you so much already”
Ferrari, Haas, Sauber on track. 17 PU sounds more ‘grunty’
And the Renault testing the Sauber’s wake.
1. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’36.041 21 laps
2. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’36.310 (+0.269), 19 laps
3. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36: 1’37.438 (+1.397), 18 laps
4. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’38.107 (+2.066), 18 laps
5. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’38.148 (+2.107), 27 laps
6. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’41.826 (+5.785), 18 laps
7. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1 laps
Last updated at: 10:58 CET
Keith, we now know that Mercedes have problems, but what about Force India, they haven’t left the garage so far, at least I don’t think so
Are you sure that the ‘problems’ Mercedes are experiencing isn’t just an excess of dihydrogen monoxide?
… Or a ‘pulled muscle’ problem for both drivers?
ahah it might be, allergy cases to the substance are rare, but you never know
force india already did some runs, everything seems fine
I have been in touch but no response yet. And the car’s on track now.
Raikkonen now lowers today’s best to a 1’32.026. Have to say this all feels rather a waste of time until the track gets about ten seconds faster.
Maybe by that time the mercedes will have ‘sorted’ their electronics problem :)
Big improvement from Verstappen: 1’29.867. At this rate the afternoon running should be representative.
Should note there won’t be a ‘lap time watch’ at lunch time unless anyone improves their best times for the test so far, which seems unlikely. Speaking of which, here they are:
1. Mercedes W08 – 1’19.705
2. Ferrari SF70H – 1’19.952, +0.247s
3. Red Bull RB13 – 1’21.153, +1.448s
4. Renault RS17 – 1’21.396, +1.691s
5. Sauber C36 – 1’21.824, +2.119s
6. Williams FW40 – 1’22.076, +2.371s
7. Haas VF-17 – 1’22.118, +2.413s
8. Force India VJM10 – 1’22.509, +2.804s
9. McLaren MCL32 – 1’22.598, +2.893s
10. Toro Rosso STR12 – 1’22.956, +3.251s
Raikkonen on a quick run, now 2.7s faster than anyone.
is he on dry tyres already?!
Yes he’s the first one I’ve seen on slicks.
1. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’25.707 35 laps
2. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’29.867 (+4.160), 30 laps
3. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’31.315 (+5.608), 10 laps
4. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’32.946 (+7.239), 33 laps
5. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’36.710 (+11.003), 25 laps
6. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36: 1’37.438 (+11.731), 28 laps
7. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’41.826 (+16.119), 18 laps
8. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1 lap
Last updated at: 11:58 CET
I’m at circuit now, can’t find Manor!
u wot m8?
Wanted to buy shirt/jacket. They still have Lotus, etc., but no Manor merchandise :(
Ah, okay. That actually makes sense. ^^
Well Manor is renamed as Mc Laren now . LOL
Manor is dead. Long live the Manor!
So, do we believe Mercedes? I find it pretty bad if they’re just inventing a problem, so Hamilton doesn’t have to run.
I doubt they would go to this extreme, and a wet run would be good for their tests as well.
If it was just Hamilton they’d have sent Bottas out.
No more running for Hamilton today following Mercedes’ electrical problem. Bottas due in the car this afternoon.
This is scary…
Sky Sports understands Mercedes have been running their 2017 engine in conservative power modes to be sure of complete reliability.
It’s not known if Mercedes have suffered engine component failures on their factory-based test dynos but a team source confirmed that failures are a desirable occurrence – the point about running engines on test beds is so that it happens close to home, where quick and accessible fixes can be applied, rather than on the track
Mercedes will introduce an upgraded engine for the season-opening Australian GP on March 26, meaning that while Bottas and Hamilton’s lap times in the W08 are already impressive, there is likely to be even more performance gains to come from the world champions –if the engine is reliable.
I really hope Ferrari and Redbull can match/beat Merc this year.
I don’t expect Ferrari or Renault have fully tapped their engines yet, either.
In fact commentators mentioned how extremely quiet the Renault sounds in the Red Bull.
Exactly, All of the ‘new’ engines will be running in some kind of reduced power mode this week. We may see some turned up next week.
Just heard from Force India: They were waiting for parts to arrive from the factory which is why Perez wasn’t running earlier.
Speaking of Perez, he’s just gone quickest on a 1’24.893, which is 2.3s off Force India’s best.
Another big step towards full-dry times from Raikkonen, 1’22.662.
Excellent… https://hasstrollcrashedyet.com/
ah ah ah Brilliant i think you should maintain this one for the all season :)
Sadly its not mine. I hope whoever’s it is, does.
Track is to be watered again. Good that Ferrari are getting some running in the dry as well.
Ten minutes to lunch, Mercedes finally hit the track with Bottas in the car.
You were right yesterday about it being the last day of dry running this week. They’ll be soaking the track again during lunch!
Here are the lunch time times:
1. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.305 45 laps
2. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’22.739 (+0.434), 49 laps
3. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’23.918 (+1.613), 35 laps
4. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’23.920 (+1.615), 43 laps
5. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’24.893 (+2.588), 25 laps
6. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’24.974 (+2.669), 51 laps
7. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36: 1’25.037 (+2.732), 37 laps
8. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’26.512 (+4.207), 9 laps
9. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1 lap
Last updated at: 13:02 CET
STR with a slow start of the day as well…
I think Bottas did only 1-2 timed laps, must have been at least 6 drive through/syarts
What’s the point wetting the track when so few cars are actually testing? Most of the teams seem to be waiting for the track to dry. No point to risk it in wet conditions when you don’t have spare parts? They should have specific wet tests separately in a better fitting track like Paul Ricard.
Just for the photoshoot https://goo.gl/photos/EJuPiCkft6Rbu96DA
at least 4 drivers did more than 40 laps. Stoff and Giovanizzi more than 30.
Only mercedes and STR didn’t do much running, but they had problems during the morning.
At the beginning of the day it appear that it wouldn’t be worth much, but it wasn’t been that bad
*hasn’t
But was the track wet anymore at that point when they were lapping? I think they were already running with dry tyres at that point.
most of it was on dry/inter
the conditions aren’t ideal, but definitely some good that was collected.
You are right in one point, don’t know if it will be worth it doing the same in the afternoon, it quite hot now, and it will dry quickly
I’m pretty impressed with the competitive times put up by some of the midfield and back marking teams this year. Sauber, Haas, Force India, Toro Rosso, Renault have all posted times below the 1:22 mark on either softs or Super softs. This could either mean that the gap between the front runners and back markers isn’t all that large this year. It could also mean that Mercedes are sandbagging.
I think the top teams are keeping a lid on their performance at the moment – look at the difference between their 2017 and 2016 pace compared to the others:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/01/lap-time-watch-2017-pre-season-testing-day-three/
The first driver past the pits is Bottas and it seems he’s kicking up quite a bit more spray than the drivers were first thing this morning. Perhaps they’ve managed to get more water down. The surface is 35C though so it’ll dry up pretty quickly I suspect.
Bottas posts a 1’44.341, for reference.
And then pits, leaving the track quiet again.
Bottas breaks the silence a second time.
Was the afternoon always ntended to be a wet session or just the morning? I’m wondering if, had the teams committed fully to this morning’s running, there wouldn’t have been a need for a wet start to the afternoon.
In the morning they were saying that the afternoon would be dry. Probably weren’t satisfied and decided they wanted more data
Thanks João. Very much a case of “well that’s what you get when you don’t eat your vegetables!”
Returned from the paddock with three recordings: Grosjean, Hulkenberg and the sound of the inside of my pocket as I walked along having accidentally pressed ‘record’. Won’t bother sharing the last one with you…
However Hulkenberg and Grosjean had some interesting things to say:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/02/races-will-be-true-test-of-wet-tyres-hulkenberg/
You can pass the third one as the sound of this year’s Honda engine…
Hey
The amount of spray coming off the cars has lessened significantly now. Grosjean and Giovinazzi returns to the pits on their wets.
Bottas out on intermediates, already six seconds quicker than he was half an hour ago.
Track made wet on request of the teams. Teams don’t use it bar Mercedes. So, Mercedes?
I like the way you think.
Having looked around a few sites it seems there is a general consensus the teams aren’t happy about the wet test and prefer dry testing. Feels like a bit of a poor response after all the general moaning about the quality of the wet weather tyres. What are the FIA and Pirelli supposed to do exactly?
Almost no spray from Raikkonen as he went past that time.
Did Mclaren get the slowest time in the 1st pre season test in 2015? I think they’re gonna get that award this year
As an fellow Alonso fan, I’m sure you can relate when I say that being an Alonso fan must be the most frustrating thing in the world.
The last decade has been incredibly painful… but this is definitely the absolute low. Even worse than 2015 if you ask me
Agreed. Supporting Alonso now is like supporting Timo Glock or Heikki Kovalainen five or six years ago….. skillful drivers confined to horribly bad cars. I’m jumping on the Mad Max bandwagon for 2017, but let’s see what Alonso does eh
This year’s F1 season still has four world champs now that Button is not racing; my favorite is Alonso, no doubt. It is hard to wake up so early to watch many races to see the McL so far from the lead and Alonso in -I guess- such dispair for not being able to challenge. If I think of supporting someone else I wouldn’t like VET or HAM to win again; I’d rather see RAI go for the second one or even VERS win the first one. For the future, SAINZ jr., another great pilot lacking a good car.
Yes it is. Let us pray that honda will improve now that the token system is abolished.
Toro Rosso are slowest at the moment (see below).
The track is drying out again, lap times still in the high thirties. The frustration for teams will be they’re nowhere near the performance level at which they can carry out most useful tests. Cooling, for example, will be nowhere near the limit at the moment.
Is the Toro Rosso back out yet?
No.
Verstappen out on slicks and into the 1’22s so we may finally have some interest on the timing screens soon.
Two hours to go in the first test:
1. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.305 62 laps
2. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’22.739 (+0.434), 72 laps
3. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’22.949 (+0.644), 56 laps
4. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’23.590 (+1.285), 49 laps
5. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’23.918 (+1.613), 43 laps
6. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’24.893 (+2.588), 32 laps
7. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’24.974 (+2.669), 51 laps
8. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36: 1’25.037 (+2.732), 53 laps
9. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12 1 lap
Last updated at: 15:57 CET
Perez does a 1’23.529 which leaves him a second off Force India’s best time for the test. Getting closer to seeing improvements.
a couple more of cool videos in this feed: https://www.facebook.com/Formula1Portugal/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED&fref=nf
that Kimi’s shot: wow
Problems with the McHonda it seems. Anyone can confirm?
Vandoorne’s just left the pits so looks OK!
yup, just improved his time as well. wasn’t the most reliable of sources…
Whilst I doubt the MCL32 is a championship contender, writing them off today is a bit rash. After their oil tank issues on days 1 and 2 they are effectively only on their second test day and likely haven’t done any performance runs yet. I suspect it will be left for the next test to turn the wick up and even then it’ll be on high fuel so I would say down be too down trodden to the Alonso fans. He might just pull a few rabbits out of hats this year. If anyone can its him.
Perez gets within a tenth of a second of Force India’s best time of the test, setting a 1’22.583.
A 1’21.839 from Verstappen puts him at the top of the times.
Ahh.. autosprts times are all messed up..
And… its fixed.
Raikkonen does a 1’21.324 on softs, improving the best time of the day, but still 1.3s off Ferrari’s best time of the test.
Would the artificial “rain” taken the rubber away?
Raikkonen’s run is done, he got down to a 1’21.263, 1.311s off Ferrari’s best.
One hour left in the first test. We’re still waiting to see if Sainz will appear and if any team will improve on their best time so far. Force India are closest – just 0.025s away.
1. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’21.263 77 laps
2. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’21.839 (+0.576), 71 laps
3. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’22.534 (+1.271), 56 laps
4. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’22.739 (+1.476), 92 laps
5. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’22.845 (+1.582), 57 laps
6. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’23.443 (+2.180), 68 laps
7. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’24.312 (+3.049), 17 laps
8. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’24.974 (+3.711), 51 laps
9. Antonio Giovinazzi – Sauber C36: 1’25.037 (+3.774), 64 laps
10. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12 1 lap
Last updated at: 17:03 CET
I keep confusing the Renault with the McLaren when it comes past.
Needs more bumblebee
next time you go talk with the renault guys, ask them if they are planning to finish their livery
Ha, it does look like that.
Same here. Renault (in the sun) is much more orange than expected.
BTW the FI looks a lot better than expected (nose doesn’t bother me in the wild).
And Sauber looks like STR, at least what I expected the STR to look like.
Grosjean is three laps away from the 100-lap mark – have to wonder how much of that will have been useful given the conditions.
Giovinazzi goes sixth with a 1’23.145.
And there goes Grosjean onto his 100th lap in the Haas. They might just reach a total of 1,000km for the test today.
Vandoorne lowers McLaren’s best time of the test by 0.022s.
Looking at the twitter feed dor 4 days now…
Anyone else feels the teams are overdoing it with the slo-mo videos… My god!
If it stops them posting the same damn .gifs over and over again, I’ll take it.
Raikkonen on a run now, he’s improved his time already, 0.92s off Ferrari’s best.
Grosjean gets with two-tenths of Haas’s best time.
Having a hard time to fit skiing, hockey and F1 to my schedule… Has anything worthy of mentioning happened in afternoon session?
Thanks Keith for all this valuable information for this test!!
Thanks for joining in guys, here’s today’s report:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/02/raikkonen-heads-day-of-wet-running/
And updated Lap Time Watch:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/02/lap-time-watch-2017-pre-season-testing-day-four/
Thank you Keith for the insight and helping out with our questions. Looking forward for the next test.
Welcome back for week to everyone! Will is at the Circuit de Catalunya for F1 Fanatic today keeping an eye on proceedings and bringing us the latest from the paddock.
The test is due to begin in just over an hour. Here’s the driver line-up for today and the rest of the week:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/06/driver-line-confirmed-final-pre-season-test-2/
Good afternoon all from Mumbai
Afternoon from Bangalore :)
Good morning from Berlin
Saludos from Spain
Evening from Australia
Good morning from United Kingdom!
Good morning from Slovenia.
Good morning from Ireland
Afternoon from Belgaum, India!
Hi guys!
Engines are being fired up here as I type in the pitlane…
Hi Will, have a great time reporting on all that can be found out there this week!
This morning, we’ll see:
Hamilton (Mercedes)
Ricciardo (Red Bull)
Vettel (Ferrari)
Ocon (Force India)
Stroll (Williams)
Vandoorne (McLaren)
Kvyat (Toro Rosso)
Magnussen (Haas)
Palmer (Renault)
and Wehrlein (Sauber)
Obviously big pressure on Stroll to keep it out of the barriers after last week. But it’s easy to forget that before his prang on Thursday he’d logged the thick end of 100 laps.
Good Morning everyone!
Looking forward to what Red Bull brings to this second test. Also looking forward to more sub 1:20 lap times over the next few days
Looking forward to no wet track and some more videos from the track.
Looking forward to Honda failing once more. And more. And more…
Hopefully they fixed their problems and tuned up their engine to 100% so we can finally see what they can really do.
Gilles Simon has just quit Honda because they didn’t listen to his advices.
1:25.231 for Vettel on softs.
Brings down to 1:23.664. That’s a big reduction in a lap.
1:22.422 now for the Ferrari.
Can anyone, Any body, explain to me, in simple English, why HONDA sucks so bad??????
I wish I knew. Perhaps the Formula 1 Machines of Today are too complicated for them. It’s certain that Mclaren will ditch them if they don’t show Progress for a third straight year.
perhaps they jumped in too soon into the new hybrid engine era without knowing the extent of the challenge.
Engineering wise, I’m not sure what the problem is. Energy recovery and pure BHP from the combustion engine?
They misunderstood the regulations and thought the engines could only be tested at test days. If only they knew they could run them in the factory to check their oil system and for leaks.
Hahaha… Honda officials probably just saw your message and ordered themselves a dyno
Probably for the same reason Mercedes sucked to produce a reliable engine from 1995 to 2006 to Mclaren.
@Darth-Piekus Ahhh you mean when McLaren and Adrian Newey refused to build a car to satisfy Mercedes engine cooling requirements!
Hahaha… Honda officials probably just saw your message and ordered themselves a dyno
Oh yeah.. I remember those incredibly slow and unreliable Mercedes engines that didn’t land Mclaren and WDCs or WCCs… oh wait..
Honda hired Gilles Simon – a famous engineer who worked with Renault and Ferrari at their engine departments – to get some help when building their engine. Honda didn’t listen to Gilles at all, that’s why he left. I assume Honda thinks that they can build the best engine themselves. That’s overconfidence that doesn’t (and won’t) pay off.
At least when it comes to the walk of shame, Honda can take it alone. No other fool was responsible for this mess.
Looks like Stroll has the day off
Stroll has been substituted with Massa for this morning.
Haha smart.
Actually Williams’ press release always had Massa down to do today.
Still a wise decision to have massa first :)
Ricciardo just done a spin on colder tyres. I love it, difficult cars are back.
No mention of it on autosport.
Forgot to mention not only unreliable engines they had blowing up all the time but not powerful enough to match the Ferraris.
Vettel is out but I can’t see any markings on his Pirellis.
Forza Ferrariiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“No!” M.Verstappen
Lights on the Ferrari sidepod on their last run:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/07/2017-pre-season-testing-day-five-in-pictures/motor-racing-formula-one-testing-test-two-day-1-barcelona-spain-198/
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/07/2017-pre-season-testing-day-five-in-pictures/motor-racing-formula-one-testing-test-two-day-1-barcelona-spain-183/
How strange. What on earth is that camera capturing?
Tyre graining patterns?
It’s definitely be tyre-related. They may be interested in the quality of the contact patch with the ground and how well the suspension is working. These new tyres are huge, and ensuring consistent contact with the ground across their full width is important.
Yep, I didn’t initially see the tyre in the picture. I thought it was pointing outwards. But yes it has to be tyres.
Award for coolest testing device goes to..
Wehrlein has still not set a time yet. He’s the only driver not to complete a flying lap.
Does anyone know the lap count of the drivers so far?
I use http://www.f1today.net/en/live/f1/223028/follow-live-the-first-day-of-the-second-test-of-2017 for that :)
http://en.f1i.com/live/#refresh
Thanks!
With the laps now being faster, will the number of laps be increased at races ?
No the number of laps are limited by distance. It’ll be the minimum number of laps to make 305km at every circuit bar Monaco, where it’s 260km. (It’s about time they brought Monaco into line with the others I think).
Why 305km? Does it have some significance?
I think it started out as being 200 miles and one way or another it sort of slipped to where it is now. There may be a better explanation though, I’ll try to find out.
305Km is approximately 1,000,000 feet, not sure if that has any significance historically. I thought it was originally 300Km +1lap which was changed to completed 305km which is much the same.
I don’t think it ever had anything to do with miles, since the Grand Prix sport originated in France. I don’t know why they chose 305 km, but historically a race had to be at least 500 km long to be a Grand Prix. This minimum distance was shortened to 300 km in 1950 in order to enable Monaco to hold a Grand Prix.
I don’t know when or why they increased the distance to 305 km, though. I’ve read theories that this corresponds to 1,000,000 feet (304.8 km), but again: This would be ahistorical, since the roots of F1 lie in France, where the ‘imperial’ system (derived from the measurements used in the Roman Empire; i.e. not identical to the measurements used in the imperial system) was abolished after the French Revolution in the 1790s. Also, the use of a non-metric system is a very peculiar archaism of the former British Empire. The rest of the world has been almost exclusively using the metric system for centuries.
Another explanation I’ve found is that 305 km were originally meant to be 300 km + another full lap. I think this sounds reasonably plausible, but I couldn’t find any reliable sources that back this claim up.
Also, there’s recurring talk (not by officials) of shortening the race distance to make races more exciting. I’ve never heard anyone requesting the opposite.
They would have to drop the 2hr limit as Monaco tends to hit it more often than not
The race length is defined as the smallest number of complete laps that exceeds 305 kilometers (the Monaco Grand Prix is the sole exception with a race length of 78 laps / 260.5 km)
McLaren off to a pretty good start so far.
Curious to see their Real speed cause I don’t think the Honda Engine is set to full power yet.
Pretty impressed that Honda hasn’t gone through a couple of power units already! Their pace still looks pretty slow.
1. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13 1’20.790, 18 laps
2. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’21.080 (+0.290), 27 laps
3. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’21.321 (+0.531), 37 laps
4. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’21.867 (+1.077), 31 laps
5. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’22.698 (+1.908), 29 laps
6. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’23.408 (+2.618), 20 laps
7. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1’23.691 (+2.901), 28 laps
8. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’23.897 (+3.107), 18 laps
9. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’24.790 (+4.000), 15 laps
10. Pascal Werhlein – Sauber C36: (+), 11 laps
Last updated at: 11:05 CET
A first sign of redbull displaying into the distance?
Disappearing*
Doesn’t appear so, Merc still look uncomfortably dominant heading into the new season. There adjusted speed on long runs is seriously impressive.
It will be interesting to see how close RB and Ferrari are but the signs for the new season are more of the same but faster.
I was referring to the first line not appearing on my screen, but now i see it…
Not really, the long stint pace of RB was equal last week and Ferrari was better. I understand the desire everyone has not to get optimistic and be let down but it will be closer this season.
So McLaren have a decent enough chassis (although car does look twitchy) again but let down by Honda.
Wow, Ferrari, their pace on mediums is so impressive.
How did you come to this conclusion?
Vettel has just begun his 50th lap of the day.
Surprising pace by the Williams there
I’d be chuffed if the car turns out to be competitive, because I was seriously annoyed by the flood of negativity Williams received when they first presented their car. For a lot of people, it was a foregone conclusion that Williams will finish 9th or lower, before the car had even completed a single lap. I’ll have a good laugh if reality has other plans.
Likewise – I wish them well :-)
Yes, I was one of them. Guilty as charged. The car looked so simple, but then again, maybe simple is good?
same as you. 1.19 is impressive and I am glad. I hope Paddy brings even more improvements. I want to see them above mclaren for a lot of reasons.
Any chance seeing lap times in the 1:18 region today?
At the current rate I’d say so, though it depends on their programmes of course.
Am I correct in thinking that it’s Massa in the FW40 in the morning and Stroll in the car after lunch?
Nope, but they announced a split programme for Wednesday and Thursday
Ace. Hopefully we will see what the FW40 can really do today with Massa behind the wheel
The driver line-up for all four days is here:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/06/driver-line-confirmed-final-pre-season-test-2/
Cheers Keith
good morning from south america; 7:09 am here. I’m just joining and seeing that Stoffel is stuck on 34 laps. Problems again? any news?
No problems. 34 laps is about average for the runners today.
thanks! indeed it is a fair amount of laps but he has not been on track for a while that’s why I was worried….. again
Sorry to report that StoffelROFL has been stuck in the garage for the last 2 hours with a problem. He’s about 15-20 laps down on the mileage for the day.
What kind of problem? WHO CAN TELL? I hear it rhymes with Zonda.
Another engine replacement on the Mclaren. Honda are still investigating the issue… along with their investigations of last week… and of course the last 2 years list of pending investigations.
That’s 6 power units in 5 days of testing. Surely, they’re gunning for some sort of record
Ricciardo is the first to try Ultra soft tyres.
Cor, Williams. Definitely didn’t expect that.
Cool… hope it’s genuine pace (as opposed to “fuel assisted” – or lack of…)
Sky reporting that McLaren have another engine problem. Hence there lack of action for the last 2 odd hours and are unlikely to be seen for at least another couple of hours.
What a disaster. It can’t continue, surely they should go crawling back to Merc.
Sorry, Sky also now reporting that this news is unofficial. So, err, fake news? It does seem the most likely conclusion though.
Autosport now just reported that there was in fact an engine problem, and therefore they will change engines.
Can someone explain why ferrari still havent used any of the softer compounds?
Focusing on their race pace, checking their aero at more constant speeds, checking all their engine systems before they turn the thing up and therefore looking for the more consistent running provided by the harder compounds.
Still a while left in the test.
So, after Newey’s assertion that they’d start ramping up the complexity of the RB13’s aero as they came to understand their base, is the RB13 much different at this test? Any news on that front?
Like to know this too.
It’s been one morning. Ease his way in, maybe see their raw pace with the base package
Well, actually, this is day 5 of testing.
F1 is streaming at Facebook right now, interviewing Ericsson.
Liberty Media’s impact is easily noticeable already
And now interviewing Boullier. Engine change for McLaren! How surprising!
It’s just pathetic, that’s what it is…
Its really becoming an annoying trend.Honda are on their 3rd year and they have gone backwards instead of forwards.Perhaps it is time they pull the plug and talk with a serious manufacturer.
It’s pretty unfortunate at this point. McLaren hitches their wagon to one of the worlds biggest car manufacturers and it’s Honda that end up being the problem.
It’s so frustrating, we have no idea what the quality of the chassis is. I wonder what they can do? Phone BMW? Audi? Audi developed pretty sexy engines for their LMP1 cars. Uuuughghghghghghhh
Also, they are not getting a good sponsor running like this. The whole programme is in crisis.
“Engine change for McLaren!”
must be lap 29.
Hello Keith. Do you by any chance have a chart with the lap times for Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull. It would be nice to compare their long ran stints.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: At present the only way to get this information would be to have someone sat in the media centre nine hours a day writing every lap time down. I don’t think that’s the best use of the costs involved of attending these tests which is why we don’t do it. Particularly when we’re talking about under-developed cars on a green and cold track, running tyres which may not even be used for this race. And all the usual other caveats regarding fuel loads would apply too. The amount of work involved doesn’t make sense for the very limited relevance of the data gathered.
@zisis, @keithcollantine, on twitter there is the @f1debrief account who does a very good job of posting stints for drivers; I don’t know if it is the full data, but it gets close, I think.
I appreciate the suggestion but I’m not going to trust something from an anonymous and unverified source. Besides which Pirelli do publish this information at the end of this test (and it was reported here).
Does anyone know a site where I can find a list with sector times?
As far as I know, there is no “official timing” and none of the teams give away the data either.
Ferrari’s testing reminds me of Merc’s testing last year. Just run on the mediums forever and ever. And come Australia, don’t sample mediums at all during practice or qualifying but put them on after the stoppage and go win a 1-2.
I hope Ferrari also gets a start like this
at this point mclaren still manages to be faster if they switch from honda engine back to zonda ;-)
I mean gaaawwwddd, it’s so depressing. I’ve always had a soft spot for McLaren and I may not be totally unbiased but this is embarrassing for the sport. The second great mark of the sports whole history is a total mess with no end in sight.
I wonder if there’s a new supplier they can go to. Merc engines again?
they will never go to renault and merc. so, that’s the only choice.
I meant renault and ferrari.
Its testing, and its not embarressing for the sport. Sometimes a team wins, sometimes it does not.
It wasn’t embarrassing in 2013 when the rot started, teams have off years. It wasn’t too bad in 2014, a new project was in the offing, they were prepping for that, in 2015 it was understandable, brand new supplier but it looked very bad, in 2016 it was just sad to see Button and Alonso wasted and it had to be fixed imminently.
This year? To see them actually go backwards? It’s cripplingly embarressing for Honda, very bad for McLaren and pretty an ugly look for a sport that needs better teams to improve it’s competition.
For the last 3 years, there hasn’t been a competition. It’s been an intermural practice between Mercs two drivers. The word for this isn’t embarrassment perhaps, it’s certainly not good.
They started in 2015, got MUCH better in 2016, and in 2017 we do not know their speed yet. You are judging on 4.5 days testing and not in season pace.
McLarens in season car development last season was superb, no reason why it wont happen again. Once the reliability issues have been identified, the cars full performance can be pushed in the 2nd half of the season.
Well you know its probably pretty easy to improve of you Start With a total Heap of junk
Their in season development was nothing spectacular.. they were more competitive in Monaco, Barcelona and Canada than they were later on at Brazil and Abu Dhabi.
As I’ve mentioned before, when you start at ground zero, anything can be considered progress. It in no signifies that Mclaren have the ability to catch up on front runners.
Palmer said at lunch that Renault changed the engine in his car after spotting a problem in the data. He should be back out this afternoon though.
Is there any particular reason why Ham with Merc covered “only” 49 laps? And all respect to Massa in Will.
Does anyone know if it’s likely McLaren would have a performance related break clause in the contract? How long was the original agreement for?
Getting so insanely excited about this season. Races are going to be short, furious and hopefully close.
Actually, the fact that most races will be at least 5 minutes shorter annoys me.
haha. tnh well said – but the rest i full agree with
Me too!
Faster racing means action moments are more compressed together, it’s a good thing!
Or, devil’s advocate, it means less action moments?
Nah, thinking logically the cars are covering the same distance, but quicker. The distance covered dictates the potential for interactions and covering the distance quicker merely changes the speed at which they occur relative to one another.
Take last year, not a lot happened in some races and a lot happened in others. If they where driving cars that where 5 seconds faster and everything else remained the same it would have been the same season, compressed.
Action happening with smaller interludes of no action creates the impression that more happened.
Good thing!
(Not saying this year is going to be good though, the other thing that’s changes is those cars are going to be pumping out massive wakes, certainly a bad thing)
Looking at the whole test so far, the gap between the fastest car and the slowest is just 2.8 seconds. I’d be amazed if it’s that low once the season begins. It could easily be twice as much. To me this is an indication the cars are still well within their potential.
McLaren have just issued the first pictures of their new 720S road car. Presumably it’s not Honda-powered…
@keithcollantine is it BMW or something else? Is it in-house made? No mention of some other manufacturer as far as I have glanced.
This one would be by Ricardo, like the previous ones.
Will is at McLaren at the moment waiting to hear from Eric Boullier. It really isn’t looking good for them so far.
And what did Mr.Boullier said?Have they decided to bring their Honda partnership to an end?
He denied that last week – in fact they were quite scathing about some of the speculative stories which had been put about:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/01/no-fundamental-problem-with-power-unit-mclaren/
Today’s briefing has started a bit later than planned…
He might have denied it in the surface but what do they really think I wonder.
that should be an interesting interview… ;)
Its a farce, Honda is really in my view really hurting their reputation, they just can not sort it out, a problem with baffles in the oil tank, maybe causing oil starvation, hence engine out, now second test and more problems. ML should just full stop work, be done with Honda and work to be back by third GP with any of the existing suppliers, hell at this point ask for a 2016 Ferrari engine and rely on your chassis know how to get in the points
Personally Im tired of waiting for Honda to get their act together.It would have been a different matter if they were fast but unreliable keeping the progress from last year but now they have gone backwards.This new Honda is unregognisable and clearly a disgrace to the Historical partnership that holds the record of 15/16 GP. Either they bring a fast engine in Melbourne or Mclaren should seriously go back to Mercedes. Mclaren fans cannot wait anymore. 17 years without a championship.
i think Mclaren will never go back to mercedes, also they team-up with BMW for road-engine i can see a possible future F1 partnership with BMW than anything else
Yes but is BMW ready for F1? Just like Honda they were away from F1 for a long time though I cannot forget the Williams BMW of the 2000s with the fantastic top speed.
True maybe they are not ready or interested for F1….. but they could run a F1 project and we don’t know that…. few years back and even last years there was rumors about AUDI running a project for F1… but like i said was only rumors…. will be exiting to see them back again
Could they do worse? The only positive thing Honda has done in F1 for years was to create the double-diffuser but even then, they managed to mess it up and quit the sport before they got to see it on track.
So far this millennium, Honda have made Pirelli look professional….
But you are talking years for BMW to develop one of these engines, can they wait that long? Surely either Renault or Mercedes is the answer.
yeah Renault and Mercedes could be the answer but i can’t see Mclaren going back to Mercedes and about Renault i don’t know red bull could not be happy about it………one thing for sure is Mclaren are not seen the light at the end of the tunnel yet
BMW won’t be interested. They will invest more in EV tech. F1 is seen by most manufactures as obsolete sport now. Unless Brown brings new exciting rules or regulations.
How are the new Pirelli’s coping with todays conditions? Still low tyre deg?
Remain worried about the new Renault engine. None of the Renault teams making much mileage.
Except Ric coming up to 100laps. :)
64 laps?
89 about 40mins ago on autosport.
Every other source says 64 and Autosport said 84 so I think that’s typo…
Yeah could be.
Regarding Ericsson’s appearance in the car this afternoon in place of Wehrlein, according to Sauber it was a planned swap.
So we have a McLaren powered by Honda back on track. Will it manage more than 29 laps though …
What’s the current record for most laps per day by a single driver? Massa and Vettel are approaching two race distances with plenty of time left to increase their tally.
So much for these cars being hard to drive.
pls no stupid
Fascinating stuff from Boullier in his briefing to the media earlier today, which Will was at. He says their relationship with Honda is under “maximum” strain at the moment:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/07/mclaren-honda-relationship-under-maximum-strain/
Question is though, if they do leave Honda, who do they go with? Mercedes? Or a new Engine Supplier, maybe try to lure in BMW or Audi?
It’s hard to see any new manufacturers coming in until the regulations change simply because they’d be so far behind.
Besides which, BMW have said they’re not interested and Audi have just canned their WEC programme because VAG need to save a fortune to pay for dieselgate.
And even if they accepted being a customer team again, who’s to say Mercedes would agree to supply them? Like Red Bull, they would surely threaten to be too competitive…
“Like Red Bull, they would surely threaten to be too competitive…”
Oh, I wouldn’t bet on that …
ohhh. ouch!
Not so sure if other teams would think of Mclaren as being “too competitive”, DEFINITELY not in the league of Red Bull.
2013 and 2014 showed that Mclaren wasn’t the top Mercedes customer team.
2015 and 2016 don’t show the relative greatness of Mercedes chassis as Mclaren are the only one using Honda engine
In 2016, team bosses went on record saying that Toro Rosso had the weakest engine but Toro Rosso was still fighting tooth and nail with Honda. Implying that the Mclaren chassis was definitely not “too competitive” but at par or below the Toro Rosso chassis.
It is pretty dramatic to see McL with no main sponsor, with an engine partner that cannot put together a package drivers can go all out with after three years, both companies having spent huge amounts of money and leaving their sponsors and fans (not to say the drivers) with the feeling that once again they have a full year ahead until getting any kind of decent result. In a normal company that would be a shutdown, sale or drastic change of direction, at least.
Not only dramatic but bad for the sport. F1 is nothing without the big battles of Mclaren Ferrari and Williams. Nobody cares about the rest. These are the most important teams and those who dominate the sport.
Absolutely agree… It is cool to have HaaS, to have STR and everything else, but the real chill is to see those classic teams challenging one another.
Now that’s a sweet picture:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/07/2017-pre-season-testing-day-five-in-pictures/motor-racing-formula-one-testing-test-two-day-1-barcelona-spain-277/
Nice snapshot!
Mercedes using a thermal imaging camera:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/07/2017-pre-season-testing-day-five-in-pictures/motor-racing-formula-one-testing-test-two-day-1-barcelona-spain-279/
And in case you’re on the market for one, here’s the spec:
http://www.thermoteknix.com/visir-camera-service-options/
Massa and Vettel comfortably over 700 km each, Massa returned to the pits after 760 km, giving Vettel a chance to catch up in the remaining 15 minutes.
Impressive stuff. I didn’t expect such mileages, but the drivers are obviously well prepared.
… and Vettel equals Massa’s 163 laps, but the Brazilian heads back for the track.
… and the red flag stops them after 167 laps, or 777 km, each. They fall just short of Mercedes’ record-breaking 170 laps from Day 3, but they improve Vettel’s individual record of 139 laps (achieved on the same day) by almost half a race distance. Things are looking pretty good for Ferrari and Williams in terms of stamina and reliability.
Correction: 168 laps each (782 km).
The only good thing I have seen from Mclaren in those test sessions is the fact that the engine is not the one that they will bring in Australia. I keep my fingers crossed that the race engine will be superior and trouble free.
Or that they havent tried to show their full power yet.
Yeah, just training engine change. Someone must tell them that the 4 engine changes can be done between races.
Thanks for joining us here today guys. here’s the session report for day five:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/07/massa-fastest-for-williams-as-testing-resumes/
Here are the overall best times for all the teams for the full test at the end of day five:
1. Mercedes – 1’19.705
2. Williams – 1’19.726 (+0.021)
3. Red Bull – 1’19.900 (+0.195)
4. Ferrari – 1’19.906 (+0.201)
5. Force India – 1’21.347 (+1.642)
6. Renault – 1’21.396 (+1.691)
7. Haas – 1’21.676 (+1.971)
8. Toro Rosso – 1’21.743 (+2.038)
9. Sauber – 1’21.824 (+2.119)
10. McLaren – 1’22.537 (+2.832)
Hello everyone ! :)
Will McLaren be able to run without any problems at a reasonable speed?
Hey everyone!
Starting to get busier in here now as we’re ready for the start of day six.
The track is dry, maybe somewhat misty slightly. Track and ambient temperature around 10 degrees
This morning we’ll see:
Bottas (Mercedes)
Verstappen (Red Bull)
Raikkonen (Ferrari)
Perez (Force India)
Stroll (Williams)
Alonso (McLaren)
Sainz (Toro Rosso)
Grosjean (Haas)
Hulkenberg (Renault)
Ericsson (Sauber)
Alonso is the first man out and wins the race back to the pits. Meanwhiile, Bottas and Verstappen are carrying on for a flying lap
Alonso’s got another dozen or so ‘installation laps’ left before they change his power unit for the day.
+1
Bottas is on it immediately. He’s already into the 21s right out of the pits.
He’s on purple Ultra Softs.
Bottas pits after an early run on Ultra Softs. He did a 22.4 – 21.x – 21.2 and a 21.3 on that run.
Hype > goodwill > patience > frustration > ridicule > desperation….
The whole F1 community seems desperate to see McLaren-Honda progress. Can’t imagine the next stage.
Keith, is the Red Bull running that weird front or rear wing?
I will check the next time Verstappen goes out.
Thanks!
Hard to tell for certain but it looks like he could be.
I think it’s a front wing. The part which just out below the usb drive input?
If you see the same pit stop practice photos as the front wing, you’ll notice a truly bizarre rear wing too.
Wasn’t that just the FW on their pit stop training dummy car???
From latest pics.. the new front and rear wing aren’t in use.
yeah, probably because it was part of making their old car simulate some of the dimensions of the new one for pitstop training
Utterly enormous aero rig on the back of the Ferrari during Raikkonen’s first run.
Also good to see FOM has finally figured out Verstappen’s abbreviation should be VER instead of VES…
VER was in use for Verne so only became available once Verne was done
Verstappen and Vergne never raced each other in F1.
I though I read somewhere the abbreviation was kept safe for the drives for 3 years, so it only became available now.
To me this makes sense, sort of… I guess the personal numbers of nowadays are also kept safe. I imagine some will maybe be retired for good along with the pilots (thinking of Rossi’s 46 there).
Don’t get me started on ‘retiring’ numbers! What a silly idea.
Well the R kind ais silent in Verstappen so Ves makes more sense
The problem was that Verge stayed as reserve driver at Ferrari – as result VER was still occupied when Verstappen joined F1. As Verge no longer is reserve driver at Ferrari the abbreviation VER became available.
Verstappen has made a request to change VES to VER as also his dad drove with VER.
Arrivabene and Binotto having a chin-wag at Ferrari. Lots of people are talking the team up this year but we’ve been here before…
Will help the stock until 24 March.
Some dedicated fans have unfurled what appears to be about an 80 metre long ‘#GoMax’ banner along the guardrail of the grandstand opposite the pitlane.
Chilton FTW.
I saw that last week as well. It seems to be a MV fanclub organising a trip with pitlane tour.
1. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’21.229 13 laps
2. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’22.172 (+0.943), 13 laps
3. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’22.455 (+1.226), 16 laps
4. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.926 (+1.697), 13 laps
5. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’24.417 (+3.188), 13 laps
6. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’24.566 (+3.337), 7 laps
7. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’35.717 (+14.488), 6 laps
8. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: (+), 9 laps
9. Pascal Werhlein – Sauber C36: (+), 8 laps
10. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: (+), 1 laps
Last updated at: 10:04 CET
Bottas is only a decent stint on unmarked tyres. Lapping in the 1’21s and setting the occasional purple sector
Verstappen improves his time with 0.002 while driving on Mediums
Some interesting new quotes from Jean Todt coming up on the site shortly…
Here you go: F1 will not bring back V10 or V12 engines – Todt
Despite the pretty ‘Calo55ainz’ banner opposite the Toro Rosso garage, Sainz is the only man to have not completed a flying lap today.
Fernando Alonso goes out on ultra softs, sets two PB sectors but decideds he can’t be bothered to complete the lap and pits.
So far, Bottas has covered the most laps (30) then;
Massa (28)
Verstappen (25)
Wehrlein (20)
Grosjean (17)
Perez (16)
Raikkonen (15)
Hulkenberg (13)
Alonso (9)
Sainz (5)
1. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’20.516 29 laps
2. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’21.229 (+0.713), 31 laps
3. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’21.618 (+1.102), 32 laps
4. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.926 (+2.410), 15 laps
5. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’23.569 (+3.053), 12 laps
6. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’24.059 (+3.543), 17 laps
7. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’24.201 (+3.685), 25 laps
8. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’24.417 (+3.901), 23 laps
9. Pascal Werhlein – Sauber C36: 1’24.951 (+4.435), 28 laps
10. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’34.732 (+14.216), 11 laps
Last updated at: 11:03 CET
Alonso has just been out again in the McLaren but has not yet set a truly representative time yet. He only has 13 laps under his belt so far today.
But at least a lot of potential to improve his times.
I’m guessing there are problems in the Mclaren garage again. If there aren’t any problems, then it looks even more ridiculous that Alonso has put in only one timed lap which is 14 seconds off the pace he should be doing.
It is so sad seeing Mclaren self destruct like this.
I swear Ron Dennis must have employed a saboteur in the garage he must not of been happy to be let go.
I’m guessing it’s Hasegawa
Hulkenberg has just given Renault their fastest lap of testing so far. a 1’21.213 on super soft tyres.
Any info on why is Ferrari so quiet today?
Aero tests and the car was in the garage for a while with Ferrari saying they were carrying out a ‘fluid systems check’
Alonso finally does a proper lap. A 1’23.210 on Softs puts him P6
Bottas had a flying stint on Super Soft tyres. A 1’19.310 is the quickest anyone has been over both weeks of testing so far.
And that’s the first time the five second benchmark time has been beaten (1’19.681). Worth nothing super softs are unlikely to be used at this year’s Spanish Grand Prix, though, and the weather conditions will be a lot warmer. But even so it’s a sign of progress.
There’s a lot of talk about Mc Laren and Sauber are more or less surviving so going around slowly is ok… But what’s up with Toro Rosso ? Their car looked pretty sleak, they have a 2017 engine…. Any information ?
To elaborate : I thought all was in line for a great start, but for now they have very little laps those last 5 days and times are not incredible.
I think the problems Honda are having are distracting people from the point that the Renault’s not been that reliable yet either…
True. Haas might be saved from second season syndrom due to Renault engine lagging (still they don’t seem to have the same step in performance as other cars). Renault (team) seem to be doing ok though. Force India seem also quite far from n°4 potential. Never mind, it’s only testing.
Amazing to think that all of the times that we’ve seen today would’ve been comfortably fast enough to take pole position in 2015.
…obviously they would’ve been immediately disqualified following scrutineering, but hey-ho.
It’s nice to be able to talk about the cars getting properly quicker, at least. But I wonder how much quicker they can get before we start to hear talk about them being too quick. It didn’t take long in the WRC…
Alonso has improved to a 1’23.041 on Softs.
Just joining in. Why Kimi has done so few laps? Problems in the Ferrari garage?
1. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’19.310 52 laps
2. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’19.909 (+0.599), 49 laps
3. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’20.432 (+1.122), 34 laps
4. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’21.213 (+1.903), 40 laps
5. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’21.324 (+2.014), 21 laps
6. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’22.139 (+2.829), 32 laps
7. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’22.428 (+3.118), 40 laps
8. Pascal Werhlein – Sauber C36: 1’23.000 (+3.690), 45 laps
9. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’23.041 (+3.731), 25 laps
10. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’24.059 (+4.749), 37 laps
Last updated at: 12:12 CET
Massa has a go on the ultra softs and improves to a 1’19.487.
That’s 0.177s off of Bottas’s best.
I see Massa had a little off at the chicane earlier.
Ferrari’s two-hour delay earlier was down to a ‘fluid systems check’ apparently…
And with all fluids apparently intact, Raikkonen produces a 1’20.472 on Softs to move to P4.
Trying out the new drink dispenser?
A quick look at the driver mileage chart: Bottas has covered the most so far, followed by Vettel, they’re the only two drivers to have passed 2,000 kilometres. Bottas has done seven race distances in five-and-a-half days of testing!
Out of the regular race drivers it’s no surprise to see Wehrlein at the bottom (428km) followed by Stroll (512km). Massa has now done almost three times as much running as his young team mate.
Bottas and Massa are both on Ultra Softs. Massa’s shaved his PB by a couple of hundreds, while Bottas just went purple in S2 on that previous lap.
Raikkonen has improved to a 1’20.406 on Softs.
He’s now P3 on the timing screens, just over a second off Bottas.
Massa improves to 1:19.420 on Ultra-Soft. Just 0.110 off the pace set by Bottas. That Williams looks competitive.
Everyone wrote them off when launch pictures of their car were released, it would be a fantasy story cone true if Massa came out of retirement and won the title.
*come
Also interesting to note that for all McLaren’s problems it’s Toro Rosso who’ve covered the fewest laps so far. The car looks great when it’s on track but it could do with spending more time there.
My thoughts exactly (and laid out more clearly. Sorry about my previous comments, reading them again, i feel like i needed a coffee or two)
Wonder why Red Bull are driving relatively few laps every single day. A case of won’t, or can’t?
They’ve done the most laps of any team with a Renault engine. Suspect that’s related to the answer. I think they’ve been reliability-limited. They do always tend to give very little away in testing, but I think it’s more than that.
I agree. Although yesterday they claimed to have fixed all little niggles over the weekend and the only reason they drove relatively few yesterday was because Ricciardo had a few spins that required some repairs…
Red Bull fixing their niggles is one thing, Renault fixing theirs is another. It’s a bit like the number of times Boullier said “ask Honda” when queried about McLaren’s reliability problems yesterday!
Looks like Raikkonen is getting one last quick run in before lunch.
Sauber remains the only team yet to improve on its best time from last week.
Bottas is about to complete an exact race distance bang on the lunch break.
Times as we break for lunch:
1. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’19.310 67 laps
2. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’19.420 (+0.110), 63 laps
3. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’20.406 (+1.096), 36 laps
4. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’20.432 (+1.122), 34 laps
5. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’21.213 (+1.903), 58 laps
6. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’21.297 (+1.987), 49 laps
7. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’21.872 (+2.562), 43 laps
8. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’22.428 (+3.118), 51 laps
9. Pascal Werhlein – Sauber C36: 1’23.000 (+3.690), 56 laps
10. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’23.041 (+3.731), 27 laps
Last updated at: 13:00 CET
McLaren has the lowest mileage AGAIN! It’s so frustrating. They have just 27 laps, compared to the average of 50+.
I believe Mclaren’s daily target is 29… so they seem like they’re on schedule.
On the plus side they made it to lunch without having to do an engine change
They did yesterday too! Just spent the hours after lunch changing it. Think they would have it down to 1.9 secs like a normal pit stop.
Would be great if they could do it mid race … I can clearly see them having the edge on Sauber if they get it right.
Here’s the quickest times by each team over all six days:
1. Mercedes – 1’19.310
2. Williams – 1’19.420 (+0.11)
3. Red Bull – 1’19.900 (+0.59)
4. Ferrari – 1’19.906 (+0.596)
5. Renault – 1’21.213 (+1.903)
6. Force India – 1’21.297 (+1.987)
7. Haas – 1’21.676 (+2.366)
8. Toro Rosso – 1’21.743 (+2.433)
9. Sauber – 1’21.824 (+2.514)
10. McLaren – 1’22.537 (+3.227)
On what Tyres ?
Mercedes on SS, Williams on US, RedBull on US and Ferrari on Softs.
So did FI have a trouble free morning? Below I see talk of how McLaren still has issues, which somewhat masks the issues Renault teams, and especially Torro Rosso have been having, but in the 1st week, and yesterday, FI also weren’t impressive – has that changed today?
Perez set their best time of the test so far just before lunch time. I’m not aware they had any specific problems which delayed their running.
thanks Keith, good to hear. Together with Williams having a good showing that gives hope of a good midfield fight again.
The gap between them is interesting – can’t believe Williams have suddenly got that much quicker.
Except if MercedesGP have been rumbled mixing oil into the fuel perhaps the non-works Mercs powered teams can get closer :D
A lot of people, myself included, suspect the times we’ve seen so far are nowhere near what the cars can actually do right now. With that in mind let’s make a realistic assumption and see where it gets us.
Last year Williams were just under 1.7% slower than Mercedes on average. It would be a surprise if they’re closer than that this year for two reasons. They have the same engine, so they can’t gain any ground there. And Mercedes have a much larger team with far greater resources to explore the potential of the relaxed aerodynamic rules. If Williams have just kept pace with Mercedes’ rate of development and are still 1.7% behind, that will have been a good winter’s work for them.
So if we assume Williams are at least as far behind Mercedes as they were last year, what kind of times can Mercedes do? Williams has set a best of 1’19.420, just a tenth off Mercedes. But if that 1.7% gap is still there, Mercedes can get down to a 1’18.0.
Of course this is purely hypothetical. But based on what we know I think it’s realistic. Particularly as Pirelli were predicting the teams could break into the 1’17s when it comes to qualifying at this track.
I mostly agree with your analysis, as a lap time of 1:18.0 sounds feasible. On the other hand, I don’t think Williams have shown 100% yet, and if they do have more performance in hand, those 1.7% become increasingly difficult to achieve.
I don’t think that a 1.7% gap is some kind of soft limit for Williams. The 2016 Williams was their weakest creation under the old aero regulations, whereas Mercedes and Red Bull achieved a breakthrough that resulted in massive performance gains. These gains might have vanished under the new regulations, potentially allowing Williams to start the season quite a bit closer to Mercedes even with an undeniably much smaller development budget. Mercedes will probably use that budget to increase their advantage during the season, but I think it’s quite possible that they haven’t reached a development stage where their concept is vastly superior to most other cars.
Except if MercedesGP have been rumbled mixing oil into the fuel perhaps the non-works Mercs powered terams can get closer :D
But they haven’t.
Back green in Barcelona, but no cars out as of yet.
Mcl swapping engine according to Spanish media (marca). New spec or just broken again.
Do you mean they’re changing the engine in Alonso’s car right now, or that they’re waiting for a new specification engine with a fix for their recent problems? The latter is already known and was reported yesterday:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/07/mclaren-honda-relationship-under-maximum-strain/
McLaren have said Alonso will be out again this afternoon:
https://twitter.com/f1fanaticlive/status/839462732894244864
Change of engine and probably spec b as suspicious Honda boxes are next to the garage. From @piusgasso
Honda Packet…
https://twitter.com/piusgasso/status/839437538922283009
and work on the car
https://twitter.com/piusgasso/status/839442608669790209
Definetely an engine change.
http://e00-marca.uecdn.es/assets/multimedia/imagenes/2017/03/08/14889740788508.jpg
We have a car out, and it’s Perez’s Force India.
Apparently Red Bull are also swapping engine before Verstappen can go out (@grandprixradio on twitter)
Bingo. Troubles…
Here’s a fresh batch of pictures from this morning including some splendid flow-vis shots:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/08/2017-pre-season-testing-day-six-in-pictures/
Stroll is out for his first run of the week in the Williams.
No pressure…
Stroll gets down to it right away. A 1’24 flat on his very first timed lap.
Followed by a 1’22.814 on his next lap
Any indication on how long a competitive racing pitstop will take with these larger tyres and cars? Is there any complications from the front wings etc that will make a racing change harder?
Suspect they’ll lose a few tenths from the added weight of moving the tyres. It’ll be even more critical for drivers to stop on their marks accurately, again because of the added weight of lining everything up if they don’t.
I recall having read an article about that last week (from Williams perhaps?) – the size of the tyres will apparently be more an issue with maneuvering them than the weight, and with the nuts deeper inside, will be harder to operate the wheel guns.
RB confirming an engine change
They’re eighth out of ten on the mileage table at the moment, only McLaren and Toro Rosso below them. The Renault engine may be a step forward but it’s not doing the distances needed yet.
What about Mclaren today, Any dramas witht he Honda Engine?
least amount of laps of any team during the morning (27), but still kind of okayish; reports that the b-spec engine just arrived at the track and is currently being fitted to the car.
never a dull session, huh? =P
at 12:55 there was a few Honda people around the mcl car:
Definetely an engine change.
http://e00-marca.uecdn.es/assets/multimedia/imagenes/2017/03/08/14889740788508.jpg
And this was next to the box
Looking at how long took them yesterday to swap the engine (stop the car at 10am and got back on track just before 4pm) I will be really surprise if they run anymore today
Hopefully in the last 2 days we see some long runs from the engine without issues. Mclaren deserve to be with the top three battling for podiums and wins not trying to get a point or 2. Have to wait and see but the light at the end of the tunnel seems still far away.
Worth noting this year’s engines need to cover five grands prix between changes to avoid penalties. That’s 1,525km in the races alone, never mind qualifying and practice. Some teams haven’t done that much yet over six days, and they’ve had engine changes too. Mercedes and Ferrari have already done more than twice that much.
Probably Mclaren will need 2 per GP if Honda does not fix these issues!!
Over an hour into the afternoon session, Ericsson has finally ventured out in the Sauber. Still haven’t seen Palmer in the Renault though.
Been a very quiet afternoon so far. Very little running compared to the morning.
Track conditions are fine.
I swear they do it deliberately.
After ages in the pits, Alonso, Verstappen and Grosjean are all now out at the same time…
We have our first Red FLag of the week
Didn’t they fly the red flags yesterday at the very end of the session after Hülkenberg stopped on the track?
Alonso leaves the pits and then a red flag. Uh-oh…
It’s Raikonnen for once not a Honda engine :)
Pretty severe overreaction of having four emergency vehicles attending what appears to be only a minor off for the Ferrari…
Alonso got a few days in the hospital in what appeared to be a minor crash… some claim he got an electric shock…so yeah they should overreact in those situations no matter how little the incident looks like..in my opinion every second count
Looks like Raikkonen’s damaged his front wing.
1. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’19.310 67 laps
2. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’19.420 (+0.110), 63 laps
3. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’20.406 (+1.096), 52 laps
4. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’20.432 (+1.122), 37 laps
5. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’20.702 (+1.392), 41 laps
6. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’21.213 (+1.903), 58 laps
7. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’21.297 (+1.987), 70 laps
8. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’21.872 (+2.562), 64 laps
9. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’22.217 (+2.907), 33 laps
10. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’22.428 (+3.118), 57 laps
Last updated at: 15:59 CET
Stroll breaks into the 21s for the first time on Softs.
Do we know what tires the fastest lap timers were using?
Ultra softs for Bottas and Massa, super softs for Raikkonen
Super softs for Bottas, Ultra for Massa and Softs for Rai according to Autosport
Palmer is out for the first time today in the Renault.
Marca reports that MCL didn’t change the engine, only the Energy Store part (battery)
Alonso had a little spin:
https://youtu.be/uQHiZA4Hnbw
Something about the timing of that video, and the angle at which Alonso’s car emerges from shot really made me laugh… Sums up their pre-season!
That was quite funny, that slide.
I kinda get away furiously aswell, perfect.
He*
Just half an hour of running remains today. Not looking like we’ll see any shifts at the top of the timesheets.
Verstappen certianly is being busy, maybe the Renault aint that bad after all.
Looks like Max has Verstoppened.
Ba dum tss….
Ahahahah
Verstappen has pulled off track and that could do it for today
A red flag for Ericsson has brought today’s running to an end. Thanks for joining in everyone. Here’s today’s report:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/08/bottas-sets-new-benchmark-as-raikkonen-crashes/
And here’s the fastest times for each team so far:
1. Mercedes – 1’19.310
2. Williams – 1’19.420 (+0.11)
3. Red Bull – 1’19.900 (+0.59)
4. Ferrari – 1’19.906 (+0.596)
5. Haas – 1’21.000 (+1.69)
6. Force India – 1’21.297 (+1.987)
7. Renault – 1’21.396 (+2.086)
8. Toro Rosso – 1’21.743 (+2.433)
9. Sauber – 1’21.824 (+2.514)
10. McLaren – 1’22.537 (+3.227)
Hello everyone and welcome to F1 Fanatic Live for today’s coverage from the Circuit de Catalunya. Today is the penultimate day of pre-season testing.
Here’s who will be running today:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/06/driver-line-confirmed-final-pre-season-test-2/
Hi Kieth and team. Hope to see some fast times and competition today.
and hi Will!
It’s a cooler start to the day here. Only 10 degrees and a bit of dew on the grass on the way in. Circuit conditions are dry and clear though.
Green flag here in Barcelona.
Vettel, Palmer, Ocon, Stroll and Ricciardo are all out.
Last day in the car before Melbourne for some of these guys.
Hamilton is the first driver to set a competitive time. He’s already in the 1’20s on a 1’20.686
Vettel is getting to work. He’s put in a 1’21.846
When Hamilton does his 18th lap today Mercedes will have reached 4,000 kilometres of pre-season testing. Ferrari are next-best, they started the day just over 3,200km.
As you’d expect McLaren is at the bottom of the pile on 1,550km. Alonso said yesterday: “We’re not fully ready to complete a race distance at the moment, and we’re only two weeks away from the first race.”
Keith, do you remember if they completed a race distance in pre season testing in 2015. I remember that they had longer stints in 2015 than they do this year. I believe their longest stint this year in pre season testing has been lesser than 20 laps.
Ocon, Stroll and Kvyat have the circuit all to themselves yet somehow find themselves all on the same part of the track…
Hopefully that also happens when the racing starts…
Vandoorne, Palmer, Ricciardo and Magnussen are all yet to set a timed lap.
As things are still warming up… What really happened at McLaren behind the curtains, with the exit of Dennis and the recently hired Capito ? I don’t anything about Formula 1 politics, but seems to me there was obviously a power struggle. We all know the problem Dennis had with some major investors, but on the Formula 1 side, looking at how Capito was out without even practical having time to “begin”, means that internal politics ousted him. I always thought there was a conflict in both Boullier and Capito having similar jobs, albeit with different names, in the structure. Everyone seems to be fighting for their jobs in that team. Why haven’t we heard any sacking rumours for Boullier? Maybe that was what Dennis wanted to do?
Capito was definitely a Dennis hire which is why he was straight out of the door afterwards. Boullier had been brought in a while earlier. I haven’t read anyone claiming to know the inner workings of the board but I think it’s significant that many long-term McLaren sponsors have gone in recent years such as Boss and TAG. These were names which came in the early Dennis glory years. How have they become alienated from the team? That will have factored in the board’s loss of faith in Dennis I’m quite sure. It may well be more that than the team’s recent lack of results, because the strategy of teaming up with a manufacturer does make sense, Honda’s problems aside.
Definitely, the McLaren-Honda partnership makes sense and going “costumer”doesn’t make much sense if one is to compete for constructors and drivers titles. Red Bull is a bit of a different situation with their history with Renault, and I would say Williams is the best case scenario I would envision a costumer relationship with an engine supplier would take McLaren to. But there should be something fundamentally wrong not only on Honda’s side for these developments. While this is McLaren Honda, its fundamentally McLaren the Manufacturer responsible overall to make everything come together. I can’t help but think there was a big reason for Dennis to hire Capito.
Kevin Magnussen is a name I haven’t mentioned much this week. So let’s mention him.
Kevin Magnussen.
There you go.
Alonso’s quotes about Honda yesterday made the headlines but he had a lot of other interesting points to make as well. Here’s everything he had to say:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/09/qa-alonso-on-mclaren-hondas-troubled-start/
Ricciardo has set his first timed lap over an hour into the session. That’s all ten of this morning’s drivers now.
No prizes for guessing who’s done the least laps so far…
@willwood It’s me. I am yet to complete a lap. Ever.
To lighten the mood for Mclaren Honda fans….
What’s Fernando Alonso’s favourite cocktail?
A screw driver? ^^
Touche!
A screwed driver!
Touche!
A screwed driver!
With two hours completed:
1. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’20.626 35 laps
2. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’20.824 (+0.198), 16 laps
3. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’21.615 (+0.989), 31 laps
4. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’22.427 (+1.801), 18 laps
5. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’22.529 (+1.903), 21 laps
6. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1’22.887 (+2.261), 28 laps
7. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’23.283 (+2.657), 25 laps
8. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’23.298 (+2.672), 14 laps
9. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’24.085 (+3.459), 22 laps
10. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’25.887 (+5.261), 42 laps
Last updated at: 10:57 CET
Vandoorne pits after going quicker than the MCL32 has ever been before.
Only handfuls of laps for McLaren at a time.
That may be the best time yet for McLaren but they’re still bottom of the pile on combined times:
1. Mercedes – 1’19.310
2. Williams – 1’19.420 (+0.11)
3. Red Bull – 1’19.900 (+0.59)
4. Ferrari – 1’19.906 (+0.596)
5. Renault – 1’21.213 (+1.903)
6. Force India – 1’21.297 (+1.987)
7. Haas – 1’21.676 (+2.366)
8. Toro Rosso – 1’21.743 (+2.433)
9. Sauber – 1’21.824 (+2.514)
10. McLaren – 1’22.055 (+2.745)
And yes, I know I keep saying it, but no way is the entire field covered by just 2.7 seconds!
A bit more perspective on that. At the Spanish Grand Prix last year the slowest car was 4.57% off the pace. So far in testing the slowest car is 3.4% off the pace. Given that we’re expecting to see a larger gap between the front and the back, it’s another sign the front-runners are operating well within their potential.
How much did Manor contribute to that deficit? I mean.. if you take out Manor’s times from last year’s testing times, does the 4.57% shrink?
The data’s in that link: Sauber were next slowest on 3.9%.
Why is everyone expecting the gap to be bigger this year?
Last year the backmarkers where two teams that barely made it to the starting grid and then teams like McLaren and Renault figuring new stuff out and taking an off year. Only McLaren seems to be struggeling like last year so i fully expect the backmarkers being more competive this year.
Stroll isn’t setting the timing screens alight, but he is ticking off the laps in a similar fashion to Felipe Massa was over the first two days.
And no offs or shunts so far this week either, most importantly.
He definitely needs more time in the car and less time with whoever’s doing his media training. Trying to get him to say anything remotely interesting is tricky. It’s a shame because I’ve read past interviews with him where he’s been interesting and candid. But he seems to be another rookie who’s caught the F1 disease of speaking in press releases.
Ocon has jumped to third on Softs. A 1’21.194 is half a second off Hamilton’s pace
That’s their quickest time in testing so far.
And he’s now been replaced by Magnussen, who takes Haas to new heights with a 1’21.129 on Softs.
That’s now P3
McLaren have cancelled the planned briefing with Boullier and Honda’s Hasegawa today…
Disagreement on how much blame to be ascribed to Honda while talking to the press?
Things are looking really bad between Mclaren and Honda now.
Boullier, Alonso and McLaren’s press office have answered quite a few questions in the past week by saying “ask Honda”. I don’t think it’s too cynical to conclude Honda don’t want to be asked.
Meanwhile, we haven’t heard back about the cause of that ‘original’ Vandoorne day2 engine failure – either it’s bad, or they don’t know yet (also bad) so that’s probably playing into it too.
That was one of the questions I asked them recently which got the “ask Honda” treatment…
Really sad to see them so far into the weeds.
Gutted! That was going to be very juicy…
That’s really disappointing. It would have been highly entertaining
Vettel puts in Ferrari’s best lap of testing and the best time of the day. A 1’19.341 on Softs
That’s a hot one. Just 0.031s off the best of the entire test, by Mercedes.
And this is on softs, two more softer compounds to go for Ferrari..
As a Ferrari fain, I am quietly and unexpectedly getting excited about 2017
Bottas did his on the super softs if in correct, so not two compunds
+ 1
last year Mercedes fastest preseason lap was 7tenths slower than Ferraris, then in melbourne they are 4tenths quicker than Ferrari. If we take their sandbagging into account Ferrari is still need to optimise their setup and improve their engine. Dont they?
Only if Mercedes is sandbagging that much as well, which isn’t as apparent as with the Ferrari.
Quite a lot of personal best times are being set by teams right now.
First Ocon and Magnussen, then Vettel. Now Vandoorne has improved to a 22.0 on super softs.
Some news that Kimi ran a new spec of PU and hence the issue with fluids and the rear spin causing the accident.
Hope Ferrari have gotten over those problems. That is more important that the times themselves.
Ferrari will be comfortably third. It is the gap to first/second that needs to be closed.
How is new PU = spin?
Drivability issues apparently.
Wow, that time from the Ferrari. Doubt they’ll make the same gains on softer tyres as last year but even so that’s impressive.
Vandoorne improves to a 1’21.671 on ultra softs and immediately lifts off after crossing the timing line.
They’ve moved up from last though!
1. Mercedes – 1’19.310
2. Ferrari – 1’19.341 (+0.031)
3. Williams – 1’19.420 (+0.11)
4. Red Bull – 1’19.900 (+0.59)
5. Renault – 1’21.213 (+1.903)
6. Force India – 1’21.297 (+1.987)
7. McLaren – 1’21.671 (+2.361)
8. Haas – 1’21.676 (+2.366)
9. Toro Rosso – 1’21.743 (+2.433)
10. Sauber – 1’21.824 (+2.514)
are they just doing a banker lap to not end up last on the timing screens and now going for an engine change in the lunch brake?
Ocon has gone second fastest on a 1’20.523. Force India really starting to pick up the pace now.
Vettels doing a cycle of hot and cool down laps in the Ferrari on Softs.
He’s done two laps in the low 19s, but hasn’t beaten his best from earlier.
I hear it’s Pastor’s birthday today! I wonder if anyone from the F1 paddock will be “crashing” his party
LOL!
I wonder why stroll not yet dedicated a crash for Crashtor
1. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’19.341 46 laps
2. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1’20.161 (+0.820), 43 laps
3. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’20.626 (+1.285), 43 laps
4. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’20.824 (+1.483), 28 laps
5. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’21.129 (+1.788), 36 laps
6. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’21.671 (+2.330), 27 laps
7. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’22.418 (+3.077), 31 laps
8. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’22.529 (+3.188), 21 laps
9. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’23.330 (+3.989), 67 laps
10. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’24.863 (+5.522), 79 laps
Last updated at: 12:05 CET
Once again, Vettel goes purple in the first two sectors but fails to improve on his overall time.
EDIT: He did improve, sorry. But only by hundreds of a second and audibly backed off on the straight.
Now actively sandbagging to not go under Bottas time??
New fastest time for Vettel on SS, 1:19.314.
I think this is the softs?
That leaves Ferrari 0.004s off the best of the test by Mercedes.
Sorry. That is SS. The internet at my side had delay.
I think it’s safe to say that Ferrari can break in to the 1:18s on ultra softs already!
They are breaking into 1:18s on SS as Vettel backed off by about 0.7 seconds in S3 on the 1:19.314 lap.. evidenced by the fact that the next lap’s S3 was 0.7 seconds faster (total time was 1:19.4xx).
So, witht he US, a high 1:17s must be possible.
From F1TODAY
VETTEL GOES FASTER
Vettel also improves his time to a 1:19.314, but he majorly backed off before coming across the line.
Yeah, that’s twice now Ferrari has been purple in sectors one and two, only for Vettel to lift off out of the final corner and audibly coast to the line.
Looks like we’re up for Mclaren’s customary engine change already
Figures, Vandoorne is at 30 laps now.
Coincidentally it’s just after 30 laps. #progress from the usual 29
Vandoorne is off to the side of the road just after pit exit. Red FLag.
Is it just me or is Hamilton’s helmet getting gradually less yellow?
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/09/2017-pre-season-testing-day-seven-in-pictures/motor-racing-formula-one-testing-test-two-day-3-barcelona-spain-174/
red mist seeing Ferrari post those times while he’s stuck waiting for his front floor to keep sticking to his car? I liked more yellow better, but oh well.
He did say he’s tweaking the design slightly for the second test, and will probably tweak it again before Australia
At the Red Flag:
1. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’19.314 52 laps
2. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1’20.161 (+0.847), 46 laps
3. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’20.626 (+1.312), 43 laps
4. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’20.824 (+1.510), 34 laps
5. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’21.129 (+1.815), 36 laps
6. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’21.348 (+2.034), 30 laps
7. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’22.418 (+3.104), 31 laps
8. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’22.529 (+3.215), 21 laps
9. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’23.330 (+4.016), 76 laps
10. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’24.863 (+5.549), 85 laps
Last updated at: 12:20 CET
Stroll really getting the laps in!
Back to green.
Here we go again. Vettel purple in S1…
Vettel sets a new 2017 benchmark. A 1’19.164 which is almost two tenths faster than Mercedes’s best.
tyres?
Yes, he had tyres on.
lol. +1
+1
Feels like Ferrari don’t want a repeat of last year when they were fastest in testing and didn’t produce during the season. Lower expectations and keep something behind for when they need it.
Bet they could easily do 1:18:2 or something
Something worrying about Force India requiring their drivers to slim down (as reported by AMuS). What if it comes at cost of the muscle needed to last a race distance.
Particularly after the lengths Ocon went to put on weight (for muscle): https://www.racefans.net/2017/02/25/ocon-on-rosberg-manor-and-steak-a-cheval/
Exactly what came to mind
It seems inherently, the Ferrari has outright pace. That said, I remember the W04 had inherent one lap pace but chewed the tyres leading to not so impressive race pace. Or the 2012 Ferrari which was slow in qualy but electric in the races. Qualifying pace is one thing, race pace quite another.
True but Ferrari also has great low-deg race pace so far
1:19.024. He’s almost there :)
It’ll be interesting to hear Vettel’s explanations for his slowing down in the final sector!
Another fastest lap from Vettel where he backs off slightly out of the final corner.
Down to a 1’19 flat now on ultra softs.
For F1 history fans, during the lunch break we’re going to have the first in our series on the 1997 season. We’ll be doing a piece on every race from this classic season, which had some interesting parallels with this one, throughout the rest of the year.
Lance Stroll confirmed for WDC?
Hi Keith, did you delete my comment earlier? Something I said wrong?
SS run from Hamilton for a 1:20.018. The cream is rising to the top.
Daniil Kvyat in the Toro Rosso just jumped to fourth with their quickest time of the pre-season.
A 1’20.712 on super softs
Vandoorne’s back out… and broken down.
Ferrari is sandbagging, they are lifting off before the end line. I genuinely believe they are here to win this year. mer is slower on the same tyre.
Total agree! Not just as a Ferrari fan but an F1 fan, i’m glad to see them back. We just need McLaren back now but that’s not happening anytime soon
Pretty sure that Mercedes is sandbagging too but we will see in Australia
Here are the updated fastest times by each team for the whole test so far:
1. Ferrari – 1’19.024
2. Mercedes – 1’19.310 (+0.286)
3. Williams – 1’19.420 (+0.396)
4. Red Bull – 1’19.900 (+0.876)
5. Force India – 1’20.161 (+1.137)
6. Toro Rosso – 1’20.416 (+1.392)
7. Haas – 1’20.863 (+1.839)
8. Renault – 1’21.213 (+2.189)
9. McLaren – 1’21.348 (+2.324)
10. Sauber – 1’21.824 (+2.8)
its looking good for Ferrari but i will wait the first race in Melbourne to be sure they are OK
Back to green here in Barcelona, but no action just yet.
It hasn’t been a seamless start to the 2017 season for last year’s ‘best of the rest’ Force India, with the team looking like a middle-of-the-pack team so far.
On top of balance and exhaust issues, Auto Motor und Sport report that the VJM10 is 10 kiograms too heavy. That comes down to the bigger-than-expected new Mercedes engine, and the fact that both Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon have increased muscle mass.
“We told them that they can only weigh 70 kilos in Melbourne,” technical director Andrew Green said.
Because of this extra weight, it is claimed that Force India will not be running any qualification sims in Barcelona.
Good thing they got rid of the giant Hulkenberg then.
Checo must be really pudgy then, because Ocon is about a foot taller than him :/
Listening to Vettel, he really has caught Bwoah-itis from his team mate.
Daniil Kvyat’s Toro Rosso breaks the silence.
I had a spare lunchtime… https://hasmclarenbrokendown.com
Hahaha!
haha lol
“F1’s most reliably unreliable car” lol
Nice one : )
Lol +1
Valtteri Bottas has taken over from Lewis Hamilton in the Mercedes, while Felipe Massa has the Williams at his disposal after Lance Stroll’s 85 laps this morning.
Race sim for Ferrari starting soon
Will heard from pace-setter Vettel after his morning run, here’s what the Ferrari driver had to say:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/09/vettel-mercedes-have-more-performance-in-hand/
Vettel is back out in the Ferrari for the firs time this afternoon.
Some of the hype which is being posted about the lap times is very silly. Apparently Ferrari have “blistering Barcelona pace”. They’re 0.286 seconds faster than the next car (Mercedes).
They may well be quickest and if they are good for them. But hype like this gets very wearisome. We had it last year when Ferrari were also quickest in testing. Their advantage 12 months ago was 0.257s – just a few hundredths less than it is right now.
So to start talking them up to extent some people are is ridiculous. And it will only fuel the sense of disappointment if they turn up to the first race and Mercedes are still the best part of a second ahead.
Well said Keith, every lap time during testing should be taken with a pinch of salt. To me the standout lap so far was Hamilton’s 1:20.4 yesterday on soft tyres and at least 16 laps worth of fuel.
My hype over Ferrari is from people at the tracks (such as Ben Anderson from Autosport) who are saying that not only is Ferrari faster, but looks much more stable and planted through the corners.
Karun Chandock said that at corner 5 Mercedes driveability still seems to be the best, but Ferrari.and Merc are miles better than others through corners 3,4,5 .
Strange seeing this post from your Keith. If the new members are indeed looking at absolute lap times and thinking Ferrari is the fastest, they will get their answer in the first race.
Or maybe Ferrari are indeed faster and it is what is seen in the tests.
Why get worked up over that hype?
Sorry, to be clear, I was referring to media coverage of the tests, not responses from fans.
Ah! ok. I know that Gary has been crowing from the top about Ferrari this year.
Makes me think, if they did end up using a similar testing method as last year, it still means Ferrari did a good job this year and Merc are a lil’ worse this year.
Since last year it was all about how the Merc was a spaceship while the Ferrari looked good but lil’ nervous around the corners, not able to gracefully ride the kerbs etc.
28th Mar is only a few weeks away. Can’t wait.
Just a ‘few hundredth’ per lap equals 1-2sec for a race.
I believe they lost by less than 2sec on 2 occasions last year!
Any news on McL? Is it another engine change? Well, they haven’t had an engine today, so its due.
An hour into the afternoon session:
1. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’19.024 71 laps
2. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’19.352 (+0.328), 52 laps
3. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1’20.161 (+1.137), 69 laps
4. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’20.416 (+1.392), 58 laps
5. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’20.824 (+1.800), 51 laps
6. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’20.863 (+1.839), 55 laps
7. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’21.348 (+2.324), 33 laps
8. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’22.418 (+3.394), 31 laps
9. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’23.330 (+4.306), 88 laps
10. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’23.515 (+4.491), 12 laps
11. Pascal Wehrlein – Sauber C36: 1’23.536 (+4.512), 9 laps
12. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’24.863 (+5.839), 85 laps
13. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’25.341 (+6.317), 14 laps
Last updated at: 14:59 CET
How many teams have managed race sims in this pre season test? Is it only Mercedes and Ferrari?
Vettel is closing in on 100 laps in the Ferrari. Looks like he might be on a race simulation run.
Daniil Kvyat has stopped on circuit in the Toro Rosso and we’re under red flag.
Times at the Red Flag with two hours 23 minutes left in the day:
1. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’19.024 96 laps
2. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’19.352 (+0.328), 52 laps
3. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1’20.161 (+1.137), 87 laps
4. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’20.416 (+1.392), 76 laps
5. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’20.760 (+1.736), 60 laps
6. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’20.824 (+1.800), 75 laps
7. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’21.348 (+2.324), 33 laps
8. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’22.038 (+3.014), 32 laps
9. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’22.418 (+3.394), 43 laps
10. Pascal Werhlein – Sauber C36: 1’23.208 (+4.184), 15 laps
11. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’23.330 (+4.306), 88 laps
12. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’24.863 (+5.839), 85 laps
13. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’25.195 (+6.171), 28 laps
Last updated at: 15:36 CET
That’s 100 laps up today for Ferrari.
Is it just me or does Pastor look about 15 yrs older than he is? 32? Wow. I do miss him.
Your mistaken… His name is Lance ;)
No news from Mclaren yet… I’m assuming they’re fitting in power unit number 9 on Vandoorne’s car
Is that a record?
I’m pretty sure it is. I’m expecting them to hit number 10 tomorrow… which is the exact number of power units they’re assigned for the entire season.
Glad to see Mclaren Honda finally breaking some records in formula 1
4*
Vandoorne has been back out in the McLaren and successfully made it back to the pits.
Sauber becomes the third team to pass the 3,000km mark. They tend to go for high mileages in testing, of course they don’t have a simulator so they can’t do as much work back at base. And using a year-old engine should ensure good reliability early on.
Hi Keith, can we have the current chart for cumulative mileage completed by each of the teams so far in both the tests?
I think Sauber will need to capitalize from other teams realibility issues at this early season.
Can’t believe how poor that Honda engine is , even in their third year,
reliability worse than in 2015,
longest stint 11 laps,
No power, 30km/h down
Aaaaarghhhhhhh!
It’s really sad to see them languishing in such a poor position again…
Good afternoon everybody. Can’t follow the test as I did last year, so thank you all for feeding in the info. And Will for the great insight over at the circuit
In other news, it seems that the McLaren has an electical issue today. Anyone knows if there is at least one component that works properly on that PU?
The starter motor?
you are right, I saw them push it so many times, I though that is how they start it
I might be wrong, don’t they use ERS-H to start the engine now? And that doesn’t work properly
not all of them I think. The Ferrari engine does work that way (at least last year’s did). Don’t know if the other manufacturers have decided to implement that feature
not last year…last week
Here comes a fresh batch of pictures from the track:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/09/2017-pre-season-testing-day-seven-in-pictures/
Interesting long run comparisons…
Vettel (medium tyres): 1:23.22; 1:23.493; 1:23.792; 1:23.859; 1:23.795; 1:23.734; 1:23.679; 1:23.618; 1:23.546; 1:23.403; 1:24.390; 1:24.197; 1:24.268; 1:25.106; 1:25.818; 1:25.900; 1:29.662; 1:24.716; 1:24.978; 1:26.457; PITS
Bottas (soft tyres): 1:24.151; 1:23.855; 1:23.383; 1:23.530; 1:23.508; 1:23.643; 1:23.849; 1:23.641; 1:23.637; 1:23.816; 1:23.927; 1:23.637; 1:23.563; 1:23.629; 1:23.537; 1:23.577; 1:23.604; 1:36.581; 1:23.177; PITS
Ricciardo (soft tyres): 1:24.470; 1:24.530; 1:24.850; 1:24.556; 1:24.586; 1:24.586; 1:24.171; 1:24.184; 1:24.638; 1:24.274; 1:24.784; 1:24.715; 1:24.641; 1:24.743; 1:24.544; 1:24.652; 1:24.591; 1:24.939; 1:24.859; 1:24.902; 1:25.226
AMuS today had the news Red Bull went wrong somewhere on setup, long runs today not where they need to be.
I put this into a chart and it’s very interesting. Vettel and Bottas even until around lap 10 when Vettel starting to drop off his pace, whereas Bottas remained consistent throughout. Ricciardo very consistent, about 1-2 seconds slower than both Bottas and Vettel.
Worth noting of course that Vettel is on the medium tyre, which makes his drop off after lap 10 questionable. Still consistently faster than the RBR however, although the number of laps suggests RBR could be much more heavily fuelled.
Need to know the comparative age of the tyres to draw a meaningful comparison between them, the Mediums might have another stint on them and they are merely seeing where the “cliff” is
do the tyres without thermal degradation still have the ‘cliff’ or is it now merely a ‘slight decline’?
Can you find times from all the teams posted online?
How about someone make a list of each team and engine:
Ferrar: 2017 Ferrari
Merc: 2017 Merc.
etc.
why stop there @F1Supremo?
Just processing another (!) batch of images from the track. For those keeping count we’re going to be in the region of 1,500 pictures from the launches and tests so far.
Remember you can always find the very newest pictures that have been added to F1 Fanatic here:
https://www.racefans.net/pictures/new/
Very much appreciate all pictures, and a big ‘well done’ for always finding the appropriate pictures with your articles.
Just out of interest, where do you find those images, and do you have to pay for them or does copyright mentioning suffice.
I like the new pictures feature! Wasn’t aware of it. Thanks Keith!
Following the red flag for Palmer’s stoppage, we’re back to green.
The times with only 25 minutes remaining:
1. Sebastian Vettel – Ferrari SF70H: 1’19.024 146 laps
2. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’19.352 (+0.328), 52 laps
3. Esteban Ocon – Force India VJM10: 1’20.161 (+1.137), 134 laps
4. Daniil Kvyat – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’20.416 (+1.392), 93 laps
5. Kevin Magnussen – Haas VF-17: 1’20.504 (+1.480), 102 laps
6. Daniel Ricciardo – Red Bull RB13: 1’20.824 (+1.800), 112 laps
7. Stoffel Vandoorne – McLaren MCL32: 1’21.348 (+2.324), 48 laps
8. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’21.819 (+2.795), 81 laps
9. Pascal Werhlein – Sauber C36: 1’22.347 (+3.323), 33 laps
10. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’22.418 (+3.394), 53 laps
11. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’23.330 (+4.306), 88 laps
12. Felipe Massa – Williams FW40: 1’24.443 (+5.419), 67 laps
13. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’24.863 (+5.839), 85 laps
Last updated at: 17:35 CET
Thanks as always for joining in guys, here’s today’s session report:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/09/ferrari-fastest-but-vettel-keeps-pace-in-reserve/
And as we head into the final day of testing a look at the fastest times by each team so far:
1. Ferrari – 1’19.024
2. Mercedes – 1’19.310 (+0.286)
3. Williams – 1’19.420 (+0.396)
4. Red Bull – 1’19.900 (+0.876)
5. Force India – 1’20.161 (+1.137)
6. Toro Rosso – 1’20.416 (+1.392)
7. Haas – 1’20.504 (+1.48)
8. Renault – 1’21.213 (+2.189)
9. McLaren – 1’21.348 (+2.324)
10. Sauber – 1’21.824 (+2.8)
Good morning everyone! Hoping to see some sub 1:19 laps from Ferrari and Mercs today… and hopefully plenty of glory runs from the midfield.
Omg this is brilliant 😂😂😂 ‘Hitlers reacts to the McLaren-Honda testing debrief…’
https://www.facebook.com/CentralF1/videos/1218723071579857/#
I havent lol so hard for so long.thanks.
Another one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4c3urXiZ6Y&t=25s
This was great!
What is it with more teams adopting the two driver approach these days? Is it more productive than having one guy go around for 1xx laps?
As Hulk mentioned, it helps keep fresh better. The driver does the job for half a day full out, then can relax and be fit for the next day. You can get more out of it that way.
But for teams with drivers who have different driving styles, it causes more time for tune-ups, isn’t it?
Time would be wasted aligning the car to suit the needs of a different driver during different halves of a day.
Anyway, seems that the approach is doing something positive. Else why would more teams adopt it.
Welcome to Friday, otherwise known as ‘Wow, I can’t believe the next F1 action after today is first practice for the Australian Grand Prix’ -day.
We are green!
Grosjean, Ericsson, Raikkonen and Sainz are straight out.
Alonso and Stroll have joined them.
This is the point in testing where I’m sick of the hype and just want to get on with the first race already! Hopefully we’ll at least get to see some interesting new aero bits today.
I am kind of sick of all the who’s faster, who’s sandbagging bit! Let’s get to Australia and finally see for our own
Hopefully some on the edge flying laps this time… Are you going to write an article about your opinions of each car and the current “order”, Keith? looking forward to your input!
After the first hour:
1. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’22.123 25 laps
2. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’22.638 (+0.515), 11 laps
3. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’22.704 (+0.581), 7 laps
4. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’22.731 (+0.608), 10 laps
5. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’22.731 (+0.608), 3 laps
6. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’22.970 (+0.847), 15 laps
7. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’23.345 (+1.222), 9 laps
8. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’25.345 (+3.222), 20 laps
9. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: (+), 10 laps
10. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: (+), 4 laps
Last updated at: 9:59 CET
Hulkenberg uses super softs to set Renault’s best time of testing.
They’re just 0.001s behind Haas’s team best, which puts them eighth out of the teams.
Stroll has improved to a 1’21.916 to go P2, but he and the car are capable of plenty more.
Other than Hulkenberg in the Renault, there have been no major improvements, milestones or incidents to really shout about so far this morning.
Emphasis seems to be on longer runs. Stroll is already approaching 40 laps in the Williams.
…and just as I type that, Grosjean spins into the gravel at Turn Five!
comentator’s curse in action Will!
Looks like Williams have let Stroll off the leash a bit today. Suspect he was told very firmly yesterday to get the mileage done and keep it out of the barriers.
Massa’s lap times were just as slow yesterday. I think they simply ran a completely different programme. I’m pretty sure they did tell Stroll to get his act together after last week, but seeing as that didn’t stop him from posting (relatively) fast lap times on Wednesday, it’s pretty unlikely that that was the reason for his slow pace.
Hulkenberg has lowered Renault’s fastest time by posting a 1’19.885 on ultra softs.
Meanwhile, Max Verstappen has finally set a representative time in the Red Bull of a 1’20.221 – only three tenths off the team’s best.
Where does that put Renault in terms of total fastest times?
Fourth, just ahead of Red Bull.
Stroll has just gone faster than he’s been so far over both weeks.
A 1’20.335 is his personal best and just under a second off Massa’s best time. He’s on Softs.
Stroll goes purple in sector one on Softs, but backs off through the remainder of the lap and does not improve.
Hulkenberg just did a five-timed lap run on Softs. He did:
22.075
34.759
22.444
22.956
23.153
Alonso has broken down two laps out of the pits.
We’re under red flag.
What bet that he steps out of the car and starts walking towards his home? :)
The man hasnt known any other home than the racetrack for his entire life.
Oh dear, you could set your watch by McLaren.
If your watch was slow and unreliable.
Could understand one bad trait.
“McHonda is slow, but at least it’s reliable” or “McHonda is unreliable, but at least its fast”
But, for three seasons its been this brutal combo. When will it end for this once great team?
Thats not how engineering works however. If its unreliable its also slow. You dont increase the power on an engine that has failures you dont understand after 20laps.
Following last weeks performance by Stroll, I must admit that I am impressed by him today
Agreed, pleasant surprise.
Times at the Red Flag:
1. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’19.885 25 laps
2. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’20.110 (+0.225), 12 laps
3. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’20.335 (+0.450), 47 laps
4. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’21.311 (+1.426), 25 laps
5. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’21.891 (+2.006), 19 laps
6. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’22.101 (+2.216), 42 laps
7. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’22.622 (+2.737), 28 laps
8. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’22.638 (+2.753), 17 laps
9. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’22.670 (+2.785), 23 laps
10. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’22.731 (+2.846), 16 laps
Last updated at: 11:20 CET
Back to green flag after Alonso’s car has been removed.
Vestappen’s produced Red Bull’s fastest time of the test (and of the day) on a 1’19.852 on soft tyres.
Grosjean is also back out after his spin earlier.
That’s a really good time. With the US, it could easily be a low 1:18s. That would mean faster than the theoretical time set by Seb yesterday (1:18.7xx)
Anyone know the fastest time of each team on each tires? A table of some sorts?
Keep being unconvinced by Red Bull, but for softs that’s a decent time
They must go back to Mercedes. It’s clear that Honda does not have any intention to get their act together. 3 Years and they have clearly shown no Progress.
The point is that although they’d be faster than they are now, they would be too dependent on Merc for their liking. For example, apparently FI has weight issues because Merc lengthened the gearbox and they had to adapt.
Not sure if it’s even true, but they point is of course Mercedes will build the engine first and foremost for their car, not their customers.
McLaren wants to have the same relationship with Honda, and I can 100% agree that it’s the right idea to beat the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes instead of being dependent on them.
They only thing is of course it’s not working out because the Honda engine is a piece of ….
Isn’t it time then to try another manufacturer? Someone who will treat them as an equal partner and produce a reliable and fast engine?
True but McLaren is no strager to Mercedes and had to act cause this situation is terrible. Look at RBR being good only their engine is not that great (Renault), McLaren know how to build good chassis but they lack a good engine so going back to Mercedes is the best option IMO
Short term: absolutely. No doubt about it.
Long term not so much because Merc will always be better at being Merc than Williams, FI and McLaren.
McLaren weren’t satisfied with being a better Williams or FI, they wanted to be a long term championship contender. However, it’s quite obviously not working out. At all. The thing is, if they give up on their long term idea and go back to another engine supplier, where do they go from there?
If I remember correct Mercedes had the same problems back in 2010 and needed 4 years to be a Top winning team but you could see every year making Progress. Honda hasn’t shown any Progress at all which is unnaceptable for one of the best manufacturers worldwide, not to mention their good past in terms of engines since the teams they worked with had the best results with their engines (Championships with Williams, Mclaren, 1999 Jordan Honda 3rd in the Championship, Prost Honda having their best finishes, BAR Honda). Their performance is unnaceptable today. Mclaren has to do something. Either they get their shit together and deliver in record time of 1 or 2 GP an engine that is close to the Top and reliable or remove themselves from F1 and stop torturing Mclaren with their amateurish ways.
Mclaren needs to arrange a similar relationship with Mercedes as Red Bull did with Renault. I’m sure it will be more difficult to arrange as Mercedes’ works team is in a different league as compared to Renault…. but they will have to try and at least become Mercedes’ #1 customer team to stand a chance of even reaching the podium. With Honda, the best they can aim for is making it in to Q3.
Not sure you can say they have no intention to get their act together, the Japanese have a very proud culture and don’t like to be embarrassed publically (more so than most other cultures) so this would be hurting Honda greatly.
If they can actually get it together, well maybe that’s another story- I hope they do!
If it’s embarrasing for them they surely take a lot of time to clear their Honor.
By the time they do get it together Mclaren would have folded.
Verstappen lowers the best time of the day. A 1’19.491 picks up four tenths on super softs.
Vettel’s benchmark laps to compare I think are:
1) a 1:19.3 on softs (no coasting)
2) a 1:19.0 on ultrasofts (coasting at the end)
Lovely though it would be to have Ferrari, Mercedes, Williams and Red Bull all covered by half a second as they are at the moment (on combined times) it’s surely not going to be the case!
Red Flag. Alonso has broken down first lap out of the pits.
Deja vu.
I just…there are no words.
Hondas amateurism is making Mclaren look like an idiot. Every ignorant and idiot is making fun of them.
this is getting ridiculously painful…. I’m afraid it will be much worse to watch in Australia :(
This has gone way way beyond a joke
Current times:
1. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’19.491 18 laps
2. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’19.845 (+0.354), 36 laps
3. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’19.885 (+0.394), 33 laps
4. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’20.335 (+0.844), 47 laps
5. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’20.896 (+1.405), 22 laps
6. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’20.950 (+1.459), 33 laps
7. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’21.382 (+1.891), 25 laps
8. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’21.670 (+2.179), 52 laps
9. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’21.714 (+2.223), 30 laps
10. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’22.731 (+3.240), 18 laps
Last updated at: 11:57 CET
Bottas didn’t hit Verstappen’s time on the same tyres. Interesting
CORRECTION: Alonso was on his second lap out of the pits.
Raikkone going quick in the Ferrari now.
1:19.267 for Kimi on Softs. Probably a low fuel run?
That is quicker than what Seb managed on the same tyres yesterday
Yup. Track improvement will come into picture but atleast Kimi is able to replicate what Vettel has done.
It can’t be that low fuel because he’s still running… unlike Verstapen
This hour before the lunch break seems to be the golden hour in terms of maximum lap time this week.
The average Honda engine lasts 30 laps. At this rate, they will need to supply 4 race engines per driver every race weekend. So that’s approximately 160 power units for an entire season!
We’ve just had a photographer walk out onto the grass beyond the barriers at Turn One for a shot
Same fan from Singapore a few years back ? LOL
Super soft tyres for Raikkonen yields him the new fastest time of testing.
A 1’19.019 is 0.050s faster than Vettel from yesterday.
i think the previous 1.19.2 from him on the softs is more telling though. Still sandbagging it seems….
It’s painful to be a McLaren fan these days. :(
I just hope it’s like the early days with Mercedes power and Honda will get on top of the problems after 3 seasons.
I started watching F1 around 1996-97, and I don’t remember them being massively handicapped with a Mercedes engine ever. Sure, it wasn’t as reliable as the Ferrari and Renault, but it could match them in performance pretty often.
At no point would I say that Mercedes had severely handicapped Mclaren. Honda on the other hand has literally made Mclaren a back marker.
Agreed, Mercedes always had performance even if they didn’t have reliability. Honda have not produced a good engine in some time. Their V8 engine was not good, deemed as heavy, not fuel efficient and peaky in its not so impressive power. The last competitive engine they produced was in the V10 era.
McLaren though have little in the way of alternative options. It is very unlikely that Mercedes or Ferrari would give them an engine. Their original point is still valid, you are unlikely to win a championship as a customer engine team. However Honda really need to get some help in and listen to it!
I hope that they take a new engine partner for next season. They may have their faults, but, McLaren don’t deserve to be grinding for 9th, possibly 8th…
McLaren as you say do not deserve these engine troubles. MaddMe, where do you think they could go for an alternative engine supply?
honda made a good v8 engine, what are you talking about? they all did in that era, the performance difference between the engines was only about 30hp.
1:18.634 Now we start seeing it, no? on SS
1:18.634 from Kimi. ICEMAN!!!!! SS!
Impressive!
How fast can Ferrari go without sandbagging?
How about a 1’18.634 on super softs?
That puts Ferrari 0.676s ahead of Mercedes on overall times.
Thats about the time people calculated they would do on softs given the previous sector times during testing.
I just hope they had about half a tank of fuel aboard, otherwise come race weekend in Melbourne and everyone turns up their engines and they’ll be sorry they got everyone’s hopes up.
Another red flag as Grosjean has stopped. That might take us to lunch early.
1. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’18.634 42 laps
2. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’19.438 (+0.804), 26 laps
3. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’19.837 (+1.203), 37 laps
4. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’19.845 (+1.211), 46 laps
5. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’19.885 (+1.251), 45 laps
6. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’20.116 (+1.482), 43 laps
7. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’20.335 (+1.701), 55 laps
8. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’21.429 (+2.795), 39 laps
9. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’21.670 (+3.036), 59 laps
10. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’22.731 (+4.097), 19 laps
Last updated at: 12:50 CET
Another strong showing from Ferrari but looking at Williams’ lap times I’m sure Mercedes can do a 1’18.0 without breaking a sweat.
Should be possible. I think Red Bull is going to have a hard time matching that pace. Although it’s impossible to say what is going to happen in Australia, I do think Ferrari and Mercedes will have the upper hand.
why don’t they at least show some more pace at this stage of testing if they do indeed have so much pace in hand?
Back to green with only five minutes left before lunch.
Chequered flag as lunch break begins here. Only half a day left in testing.
Here’s today’s updated Lap Time Watch. Raikkonen’s lap today means F1 is now six seconds faster than the pole position time for the 2015 Spanish Grand Prix, one second quicker than was targeted:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/10/lap-time-watch-2017-pre-season-testing-day-eight/
Errr…..not so record breaking? (here’s hoping to see that change :)
Well i would assume they are 1 second or more quicker because of development and the rulechange is maybe adding another 5sec to that so its all in order. Maybe they didnt expect the teams making such huge improvements on their own.
Ferrari have made the fastest times on super softs and softs and mediums by over half a second if my calculations are correct. online comments from press at the circuit says they are the most stable car out there also. I think at the moment Mercedes only has enough to nearly match Ferrari. should be a great season. Redbull have not got much aero on their car yet, and are setting up a perfect base with their car to install quick aero upgrades. I think Ferrari v merc up to the Monaco gp, and then Redbull come to the fight.
you really need to wait Melbourne before trying any conclusion, Mercedes in per-season are never very fast and then BOOM they pull a second out of the bag……
Yep, pretty sure they haven’t flipped “the switch” yet.
Why not? It’s the last day of testing? You don’t sandbag, then turn the car up to max at Melbourne and something breaks there…. that would be lunacy. Personally, I would put Ferrari and Merc about level going into the first race.
Why would they? if you lift on top speed on one of the straights you get to test everything and not reveal to the rest what times you can achieve, but still easily calculate them. Everybody’s hiding something, it’s what makes it exciting.
Bertenshaw
Why does everyone appear to ignore Williams who have posted some quick times in the 19’s??!
these cars should break f1 record lap times, but I they are 100kg heavier than the old 600kg cars, so they should be quite physical on the drivers. I wonder about the g forces on some hot days at some tracks…
Physically Singapore seems to be the hardest on the drivers as is so humid, but not a high G force circuit, so it will be interesting so see at what tracks they struggle and who done their gym work, as opposed to posting photos at the gym :)
Likely the race in Malaysia as it’s a high G track with plenty of high speed corners and hard deceleration zones plus the usual hot and humid conditions. That should be a real test of driver stamina his year!
Yes good call there, same climate of Singapore of course.
Some are saying it will be like the 80′ & 90’s where some drivers needed to be pulled out of the car, I don’t think it will as the physical fitness and diets are so much more advanced these days, but it will make them stand up and take notice- that’s ok, they get paid ok.
We’ve had drivers fainting and going to hospital in the very recent past. The last example I can think of is Jev Vergne in 2014: http://jalopnik.com/f1-driver-jean-eric-vergne-was-hospitalized-after-starv-1559375341
In fact, it’s the diets that cause this problem: Weight has become so critical that some drivers need to starve themselves and dehydrate on purpose to avoid carrying a lap time handicap with them.
The car weight doesnt affect how “physical” it is. If its high G forces its high G forces no matter what you are in. Theres no heavy wheel or janky shiftlever to hustle with so its basicly just keeping up with G forces while staying focused. With the drivers racking up several racedistances a day without braking a sweat i wouldnt be to worried about it though. Its mostly pr talks.
but wheel to wheel combat is a different kettle of fish to testing. I hope the drivers are knackered i want to see them earn their money :-)
Does any one have the information regarding best sector times per team for all three sectors? Usually this can be an indication of who is sandbagging. I know we all want to figure out if Ferrari or Redbull are actually going to challenge Mercedes this year, this might point to something.
We wont know until quali in Melbourne in two weeks. Red Bull can start a bit slower and build up but if Mercs aren’t short odds for WCC I would be surprised.
I think Merc’s problem right now is trying to tame a beast as opposed to finding more. Corner exit speed on that merc is immense, Bottas having a bigger lift thru turn 9 than the rest, Lewis referring to the car as a ‘beast’ and just general opinion from track side observers (including Martin Brundle) kinda points to the fact that the car might be too fast. I could be wrong.
it would be REALLY interesting if the expected horsepower advantage of the Mercedes unit turned out to be a hindrance. it would make for a really good season, with Mercedes dominating the faster tracks and struggling in the slower ones…
I think after lunch…kimi will be on race sim….
So if the teams are able to change whatever they want on the engines now what exactly are they doing at the homologation and whats stopping Sauber from putting in hardware upgrades for the engine?
Well, in Sauber’s case, I’d argue their largest constraint there would be money @rethla! But seriously, since it is a Ferrari engine, their einge supplier will have made it VERY clear that they are not able to even come close to anything like that. The Engines aren’t sold to a team, they are leased, including a crew to operate them, to analyse everything and to advice on setttings.
Off course things are different for the ones that make the engines, but there is a process, because there are rules about providing the same engine to all supplied teams.
Yeh i understand the deals made between teams but theres nothing in the rules stopping them from putting a completly new engine in there during the season?
Is there no in-season testing for this year? This last 4 hours is all the teams get to test in 2017?
There is. There will be 2 days of testing after the GPs of Bahrain and Hungary (and another 2-day-test after Abu Dhabi).
I thought there were 3 other 2 day tests during the year.
Perez is the first and only car out so far.
Excellent use of ‘post-prandial’ by whoever’s manning the Force India Twitter account at the moment. There’s a phrase you don’t see often enough in F1.
Fairly quiet at the moment, I think we may have seen the fast lappery for now, meaning Ferrari bag another two weeks of good publicity!
+1% in their stock valuation since 24/2; they must have expected more :p
A few more pictures from today’s test have just gone up here including some of the McLaren moving of its own accord, and not just on the back of a flatbed truck:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/10/2017-pre-season-testing-day-eight-in-pictures/
Felt the burn on that one :D
FInally seeing some action now. Hamilton, Stroll and Wehrlein are out.
So the latest 2017 issue seems to be that teams will have serious fuel amount issues (especially in Melbourne and Bahrein). The amount of fuel allowed is too little for the new changes, which means races will be … wait for it… fuel saving races! (oh the banter)
Luckily Mclaren doesn’t have to worry about that. Since they won’t be completing races anyways might as well crank up the fuel flow and go out in a blaze of glory
Even if the fuel amount is increased, they are always going to run with the minimum amount required. So this will always be there I suppose.
Until the other teams are equal in performance and adventurous in strategies to go for an extra pitstop and push all the way to the end.
But the 4 PU rule is going to put an end to that I suppose.
So it’s all dark either way :)
There always has been and always will be fuel saving in F1 (without refueling) as any excess KG cost them dearly.
Fuel saving is not as bad a tyre saving as it allows for more – and more strategic – racing during ‘non-saving parts’ of the GP
Didn’t expect this much positivity ;-)
1. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’18.634 48 laps
2. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’19.438 (+0.804), 33 laps
3. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’19.837 (+1.203), 44 laps
4. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’19.845 (+1.211), 53 laps
5. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’19.885 (+1.251), 45 laps
6. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’20.116 (+1.482), 65 laps
7. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’20.335 (+1.701), 71 laps
8. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’21.020 (+2.386), 6 laps
9. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’21.429 (+2.795), 44 laps
10. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’21.670 (+3.036), 59 laps
11. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’22.731 (+4.097), 19 laps
12. Pascal Werhlein – Sauber C36: 1’24.940 (+6.306), 10 laps
Last updated at: 14:59 CET
what was the previous lap record – any session?
19’0
This is a new lap record, which shows that it is much faster than the cars of 2007 and 2008
1:18.339, 2008 F1 testing, Ferrari F2008. Felippe Massa
I see McLaren is still sandbagging…
Ha! Classic
It is not that McL are last; it is just that they are lost!! How can one even imagine that F1 engine provider can provide such miserable performance, reliability and response?? What a shame.
well.. not sure if only Honda is to blame here. There are lots of parts made by MCL and looking at last year there were some amateuristic designs ( like a broken rearwing and so on)
So i do not count out MCL for some of the errors.
I don’t see how you can assign any blame to Mclaren. Even if there are problems in the chassis, no one has found them yet because they haven’t gotten any running yet.
2017 is 100 % blame assigned to Honda
if i was MCL Fan i would blame Honda all the way because,OK last few years with the token changing the design was impossible, but this year they started and here again seems another trouble season…..
I agree with whoever said that if it wasn’t for Honda we’d all be mocking Red Bull right now. Another day ruined by issues.
good point yeah. I’d say Red Bull really are back to 2015 reliability for the start of the season, just like McLaren
They say McL are packing up to leave even before the session ends; any news? Horrible pre-season for them
Well if they cant get it running in the next hour there no reason to stay at the track. They got better facilities at home trying to figure out whats wrong.
I agree…
But Alonso is out running now so…
Alonso is back out.
Can someone please give me a link to live timing?
https://www.f1today.net/en/live/f1/223174/follow-live-the-final-day-of-the-second-test-of-2017
Ok, thanks!
1. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’18.634 72 laps
2. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’19.438 (+0.804), 33 laps
3. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’19.837 (+1.203), 68 laps
4. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’19.845 (+1.211), 53 laps
5. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’19.885 (+1.251), 45 laps
6. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’20.116 (+1.482), 90 laps
7. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’20.199 (+1.565), 19 laps
8. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’20.335 (+1.701), 97 laps
9. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’21.211 (+2.577), 10 laps
10. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’21.429 (+2.795), 54 laps
11. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’21.670 (+3.036), 59 laps
12. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’22.412 (+3.778), 25 laps
13. Pascal Werhlein – Sauber C36: 1’24.940 (+6.306), 23 laps
Last updated at: 15:47 CET
It will be interesting to look at the total laps / mileages for the teams when this is all over. We can speculate over fuel loads and sandbagging, but reliability will be much clearer (yes – I’m looking at you McLaren).
Also – huge thanks to Keith Collantaine and Will Wood for the astounding service over the two test weeks – most excellent gentlemen.
+1
Mclaren on lap 29
Will it go bang again?
Red Flag after Raikkonen stops on circuit.
I read elsewhere that he spun into the gravel. Which version is correct?
He locked rears, spun and stopped. Dont think he was in the gravel though
Yeah, I’ve seen a video now (apparently just before the spin), looks like something broke, either a suspension or oil leaking onto the tyres, because the handling looked way too wobbly for his speed at that moment.
Sounded like something went wrong with the engine it had a sudden burst of power and then went dead.
I guess it was the engine giving up on ferrari.. Not bad for an engine to fo 4000 + kms.. considering its the same engine from first test.
I wonder if they where pushing it over the limit trying to get data from a crash or if it was by chance, either way it went perfect for them.
Really???
Are you sure they didn’t get a 2nd power unit to the 2nd test?
Take some notes Team Sakura
John Surtees R.I.P – what a shame.
Well passing at old age in the comfort of your family aint a shame.
Very fair point Gabriel
As I’m sure you’ve seen we’ve lost a giant of the sport today:
John Surtees, champion in cars and on bikes, dies at the age of 83
Sad to read about it a couple of minutes ago yes. Rest in Peace John Surtees
A second Red Flag following the second Ferrari-powered car to stop on track in the last hour.
This time, it’s Sainz in the Toro Rosso.
Toro Rosso is Renault powered
1. Kimi Raikkonen – Ferrari SF70H: 1’18.634 97 laps
2. Max Verstappen – Red Bull RB13: 1’19.438 (+0.804), 47 laps
3. Carlos Sainz Jnr – Toro Rosso STR12: 1’19.837 (+1.203), 116 laps
4. Valtteri Bottas – Mercedes W08: 1’19.845 (+1.211), 53 laps
5. Lewis Hamilton – Mercedes W08: 1’19.850 (+1.216), 28 laps
6. Nico Hulkenberg – Renault RS17: 1’19.885 (+1.251), 45 laps
7. Sergio Perez – Force India VJM10: 1’20.116 (+1.482), 118 laps
8. Jolyon Palmer – Renault RS17: 1’20.205 (+1.571), 30 laps
9. Lance Stroll – Williams FW40: 1’20.335 (+1.701), 113 laps
10. Romain Grosjean – Haas VF-17: 1’21.110 (+2.476), 76 laps
11. Marcus Ericsson – Sauber C36: 1’21.670 (+3.036), 59 laps
12. Fernando Alonso – McLaren MCL32: 1’21.811 (+3.177), 37 laps
13. Pascal Werhlein – Sauber C36: 1’24.940 (+6.306), 37 laps
Last updated at: 17:17 CET
Alonso has lowered McLaren’s best time of the test – a 1’21.389 – but it’s only good enough for 11th best on the day.
handsomely beating the Sauber ;)
But 3rd on top speed :)
make that 4th; Ham just beat it :(
not really representative: f1today said ALO was slipstreaming Stroll (STR??) when going through the speedtrap…
I get this feeling that Mclaren-Honda is set to retire both cars in the first GP. And even if they finish, they’d be behind everyone else.
4 years of R&D, yet Honda seems unable to build a PU capable enough lasting a whole weekend, let alone closing performance gaps.
Maybe they built something so avant-garde that when it performs it will blow everyone else by 2 sec……..NAH.
They’ll blow nothing….from 2 sec behind everyone else.
Have some faith…we have to crawl before we walk
Whats stopping them fron doing their own runs in their own makeshift stage back at the technology center?
Raikkonen is back out in the Ferrari.
Only ten minutes left of testing!
Thanks for joining in everyone, here’s the report on the final day:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/10/raikkonen-leaves-ferrari-on-top-as-mclarens-misery-goes-on/
And here’s the updated Lap Time Watch:
https://www.racefans.net/2017/03/10/lap-time-watch-2017-pre-season-testing-day-eight/
Thanks for following our coverage from the track over the last two weeks. We’ll be back in less than two weeks for the Australian Grand Prix!
Before then the new IndyCar season will begin, see you this Sunday for the first race from St Petersburg.
I am curious whats stopping Mclaren do their own private tests in their makeshift place in the technology center just like Ferrari in the past and Mercedes when they had tyre problems?
The rules on testing is what holds them back. They’d risk being thrown out if they’d test outside of the official test allowances
Looking at the testing line-up, I am realising I’ve been hard on Williams. Stroll may be only average, but his money allows them a chance to make Kubica work. Look at Force India and Toro Rosso, testing two absolutely terrible drivers.
Wow, these 9 months have indeed flown past!
So, good morning everyone. Quite a few laps already made out there it seems!
is it just me, or is the live chat sorted from oldest on top to newest riht below?
It’s i had to scroll an way down!
What times is Kubica doing?
Are these tests open to the public?
Keith, Are McLaren going to run Renault PU in this tests, like they did in 2014 with Honda after championship was finished, if I remember right they did only installation lap with Honda in that time
hi