Barcelona test one data: A glimpse of Mercedes’ speed

2015 F1 season

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Sauber gained the most time at the Circuit de Catalunya compared to last year and Mercedes found the least – but it’s the latter who look strongest.

There was cause for cheer at Ferrari again too, but McLaren remain alarmingly short of mileage on their new Honda power unit.

Fastest lap times

While Romain Grosjean headed the lap times on super-soft tyres it was Nico Rosberg’s effort on the medium tyre compound which really stood out.

Pos.DriverTeamEngineTimeGapTyre
1Romain GrosjeanLotusMercedes1’24.067Super-soft
2Nico RosbergMercedesMercedes1’24.3210.254Medium
3Pastor MaldonadoLotusMercedes1’24.3480.281Super-soft
4Daniel RicciardoRed BullRenault1’24.5740.507Soft
5Kimi RaikkonenFerrariFerrari1’24.5840.517Soft
6Felipe MassaWilliamsMercedes1’24.6720.605Soft
7Sergio PerezForce IndiaMercedes1’24.7020.635Super-soft
8Max VerstappenToro RossoRenault1’24.7390.672Super-soft
9Lewis HamiltonMercedesMercedes1’24.9230.856Medium
10Daniil KvyatRed BullRenault1’24.9410.874Soft
11Felipe NasrSauberFerrari1’24.9560.889Super-soft
12Valtteri BottasWilliamsMercedes1’25.3451.278Soft
13Carlos Sainz JnrToro RossoRenault1’25.6041.537Super-soft
14Fernando AlonsoMcLarenHonda1’25.9611.894Soft
15Jolyon PalmerLotusMercedes1’26.2802.213Soft
16Sebastian VettelFerrariFerrari1’26.3122.245Soft
17Marcus EricssonSauberFerrari1’26.3402.273Soft
18Nico HulkenbergForce IndiaMercedes1’26.5912.524Soft
19Pascal WehrleinForce IndiaMercedes1’27.3333.266Medium
20Jenson ButtonMcLarenHonda1’28.1824.115Medium
21Susie WolffWilliamsMercedes1’28.9064.839Medium

NB. Force India used their 2014 car

Lap time improvement since last year

As there was no pre-season test at the Circuit de Catalunya in 2014 the fastest lap times from the qualifying session for the race give an indication how far the teams have progressed since then.

The medium and hard tyres were provided for last year’s race so Mercedes lap time improvement of one second is probably the most representative as they did not use the soft or super-soft tyres at the test.

As you would expect the four teams who posted the biggest lap time improvements – Sauber, Toro Rosso, Force India and Lotus – were all those who used the super-soft tyre compound. Force India’s presence with their well-developed 2014 car alongside the early 2015 machines is a further indication how much of the lap time gain can be put down to the softer tyres.

Mercedes aside, the first among those who did not use the super-soft tyres was Ferrari. That indicates the promise they showed at Jerez may be borne out in under more representative circuits and conditions.

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Total testing mileage this year

Mileage by team

Having covered just 349 kilometres at Jerez, McLaren needed to substantially increase their running at Barcelona. They fell well short of their goal.

On Saturday evening racing director Eric Boullier admitted the team’s persistent MGU-K problems meant they’d only completed around half of what they’d targeted. That was before Fernando Alonso’s crash on the final day forced an early end to their session.

As the only team running Honda’s power unit the upshot is that new engine still hasn’t passed the 1,000 kilometre mark. Consider that this year’s engines must run for five race distances between replacements, which is at least 1,525 kilometres before qualifying and practice running is taken into account, and it’s clear they have a mountain to climb in the final four days of testing which begins on Thursday.

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Mileage by engine

As Mercedes supply twice as many teams as Renault and Ferrari, but Force India missed the first test, it’s to be expected they would cover almost twice as much ground in testing.

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Mileage by driver

Most teams have divided the running equally between their drivers. McLaren even intended to get Jenson Button back behind the wheel yesterday afternoon to make up for some of his shortfall, before Alonso had his crash.

The remarkable thing about the two Mercedes drivers racking up the most test mileage is they haven’t had the W06 all to themselves – Pascal Wehrlein did much of the car’s running on Thursday after Lewis Hamilton fell ill.

But it’s hard not to sense the financial importance of Pastor Maldonado’s sponsors to Lotus explains why he has not had to sacrifice any of his seat time. Grosjean has spent two fewer days in the car due to the late arrival of the E23 at Jerez and Jolyon Palmer’s run at Barcelona, and as a result has covered little more than half as much ground in the new car as his team mate.

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2015 F1 season

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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36 comments on “Barcelona test one data: A glimpse of Mercedes’ speed”

  1. Profile Photo

    mateuss (@mateuss)
    23rd February 2015, 12:24

    Good for Verstappen, Sainz and Nasr to be doing such good mileage.

    As for McLaren-Honda, the issues have indeed been small, but there are too many of them. That has probably prevented them them from discovering yet other issues, prevented them from doing set up and learning about the chassis.

    I’am almost as curious to see if McLaren-Honda will be able to do competitive race stints in Melbourne, as I am to see the general order of the teams.

  2. Profile Photo

    MazdaChris (@mazdachris)
    23rd February 2015, 12:26

    Although Rosberg’s two medium tyre runs at the end of yesterdays session were eye catching, I think the real story is to be found in the long run pace. On their race simulations, the Mercedes ran both faster and longer than any of their rivals, with much less dropoff in performance. There does seem to be a depth of quality in the Mercedes, both in terms of speed, and tyre preservation. They will be very hard to beat, unless someone is hiding a big bag of pace in their pocket.

    Even then, we won’t have yet seen the true potential of the Mercedes, who were also conspicuously quite slow in the speed traps, suggesting they’re either running very heavy, or with the PU turned down.

    1. Boomerang
      23rd February 2015, 12:39

      It’s my secret desire that big bag of performance is hidden in Enstone. E23 looks like product yet to be finished. When you compare it to others half of the aerodynamic aids at the rear is missing.

    2. Profile Photo

      BasCB (@bascb)
      23rd February 2015, 14:33

      Good point there. It seems that having had the opportunity to further finetune the car for running without the FRIC system this year as well as further improvements on the bodywork and engine leave Mercedes well prepared.

  3. Profile Photo

    McL88AsAp (@deongunner)
    23rd February 2015, 12:53

    Switching to Honda is a huge gamble for McLaren, they risked everything they have to achieve success, if they get it will be fascinating to see but right now there are no positive results. if Honda turned out to be the worst engine out of the 4, its no surprise McLaren will be backmarkers, cause their rival playing catch up right now. the best drivers still won’t do it for them, the aero are not as good as top teams standards and currently Honda plagued by a lot of problems. fortunately Alonso (I expect him to recover soon) and Button are the most experienced drivers in the grid, something that needed under difficult conditions. above all its a big mistake by McLaren to switch from Mercedes to Honda, they have to know the situation before they make something and that’s the lesson they need to learn.

    1. Profile Photo

      Robbie (@robbie)
      23rd February 2015, 13:46

      Switching to Honda, imho, is no bigger a gamble than continuing on as a customer of Mercedes and expecting they could beat the works Mercedes team at their own game. Now, with Honda, they have a chance for a much better chassis/PU marriage which is crucial these days. These initial issues they are having were always a possibility and were far more likely than them nailing their package straight out of the box.

    2. Profile Photo

      petebaldwin (@)
      23rd February 2015, 13:49

      @deongunner – Perhaps they do know the situation though… I think everyone expected them to have issues and those issues would look even worse when compared to the rest of the teams who are running tried and tested power units.

      In my opinion, it’s not about what happens this year that decides if McLaren have made a mistake. They had already lost their “factory team” and have decided to take a calculated gamble to become, in effect, the factory team for Honda. The advantages of that will be felt over the coming years as opposed to 2015.

  4. Profile Photo

    Prof Kirk (@prof-kirk)
    23rd February 2015, 12:56

    Safe to say Merc is ridiculously scary as expected. So then, Who’s the best of the Rest?

    Red Bull? Lotus? Surely not Ferrari.

    1. Profile Photo

      KwekuQ (@kwekuq)
      23rd February 2015, 13:08

      In the first test everyone was speaking about how strong the Ferrari powered cars look. Seems to have gone with the hype…

      1. Profile Photo

        D (@f190)
        23rd February 2015, 14:29

        To be fair, it was mainly Ferrari fans saying that. Most people were saying how irrelevant the times were.

        1. Profile Photo

          Ivan B (@njoydesign)
          23rd February 2015, 15:19

          if we imagine that the fuel levels were the same, I’d say Ferrari looks good and is a bit faster than RedBull

  5. Profile Photo

    Hans (@hanswesterbeek)
    23rd February 2015, 13:05

    I wouldn’t say they are looking to best of the rest, but is it just me or is it surprising to see that Toro Rosso in some ways looks better than Red Bull? Fastest laps aside, Toro Rosso outperforms the bigger sister in all the stats in this article.

    1. Profile Photo

      KaIIe (@kaiie)
      23rd February 2015, 13:12

      Much like Sauber, STR seems to always fare better during preseason testing than during the actual season.

      1. Profile Photo

        Hans (@hanswesterbeek)
        23rd February 2015, 22:20

        Indeed. Any idea why? It’s not that STR needs to attract sponsors or anything. Furthermore, that would only count for fastest laps, not for mileage.
        Anyway, the inexperienced drivers will surely waste a good result or two I would expect…

        1. Profile Photo

          MattDS (@mattds)
          24th February 2015, 7:50

          @hanswesterbeek one major difference is that RBR are always more on the edge with their designs than STR, who are more conservative. It’s reasonable to assume this will show in mileage, where a car on the edge will often suffer a bit more problems.
          Look at 2014 pre-season testing for the extreme example of this.

          1. Profile Photo

            Hans (@hanswesterbeek)
            24th February 2015, 8:03

            Fair point. I am not sure whether that also shows during the season – is STR’s reliability record so much better than RBR’s? I would guess it is not, which would make it extra respectable that Red Bull seems to take risks in their design every winter, which they always overcome in the beginning of the season.

          2. Mr win or lose
            24th February 2015, 15:18

            Last year, Red Bull suffered 5 DNFs (2 related to the power unit) and Toro Rosso suffered 10 DNFs (of which 7 were related to the power unit). Both teams suffered a weird suspension failure (Kvyat in Austria and Ricciardo in Brazil). So Red Bull seems better at solving reliability issues during the winter tests.

  6. Profile Photo

    Gigantor (@kbdavies)
    23rd February 2015, 13:30

    Anyone who thinks McLaren are going to make a RBR-esque comeback is deluding themselves. If there is something that McLaren are not; it is Red Bull Racing. Red Bull have shown time and time again that as a team, they are second to none regarding their development drive. ONLY Mercedes comes close.
    There has not been any evidence of McLaren’s much vaulted comeback skills nor in-season development abilities in the last 5years. You would have to go as far back as 2009 to see it; when they were winning races by the end of the year after creating the “dog of a car”.
    I predict a horrendous year for McLaren, and I predict regular non-finishes and DNF’s.

    Ron will have to eat his words on the sponsorship and start selling it cheap; as i do not see any reason in the near future that would enable them to attract big name sponsors.

    1. Profile Photo

      Robbie (@robbie)
      23rd February 2015, 13:55

      Well at least they have been able to attract one big-name sponsor…Honda. Let’s give this new marriage the chance it deserves to see things through and reverse their misfortunes of recent years. That’s the whole point of this new venture and the re-entry of Honda to F1. Mac obviously felt the need for change. Can they have a few minutes to work things out and rebuild themselves?

    2. Profile Photo

      petebaldwin (@)
      23rd February 2015, 14:21

      How can you comment on the quality of the McLaren when you have no idea whether it’s quick or not? They’ve had some issues with their new Honda power unit (which everyone was expecting) but I’m unaware of any information to suggest they’ve created a poor car or are in need of a “comeback.”

      The McLaren could be the best car on the grid but until Honda get their power unit working correctly, it’s not going to show.

    3. Biggsy
      23rd February 2015, 14:31

      So much hate in that comment…

    4. Profile Photo

      BasCB (@bascb)
      23rd February 2015, 14:36

      Hm, remember when they had the horrible issues with theire overly fancy exhaust a couple of years back and then were able to hit the ground running with a new (more or less copied from RBR) blown floor/diffusor?
      I wouldn’t say they couldn’t do it (that is something I would more say Ferrari are weak at). It’s just that Newey has more of a nack of finding the right things to improve, while it has been quite hit and miss at McLaren in the past 6 years @kbdavies

    5. Profile Photo

      antonyob (@)
      23rd February 2015, 14:45

      You should be able to clean up at the bookies then.

      Not sure I know the difference between a DNF & a non finish? maybe the bookies will

  7. Cranio
    23rd February 2015, 14:07

    If you compare with 2014 testes, then…

    Red Bull: 2014 – Vettel – 1.27.973 – 2015 – Ricciardo – 1.24.574 (-3.399);
    Force India: 2014 – Hulkenberg – 1.27.727; 2015 – Perez – 1.24.702 (-3.025);
    Toro Rosso: 2014 – Vergne – 1.27.724 – 2015 – Verstappen – 1.24.739 (-2.985);
    Williams: 2014 – Wolff – 1.27.280 – 2015 – Massa – 1.24.672 (-2.608).
    Sauber: 2014 – Gutierrez – 1.26.972 – 2015 – Nasr – 1.24.956 (-2.016);
    Mc Laren: 2014 – Button – 1.28.333 – 2015 – Alonso – 1.26.387 (-1.946);
    Ferrari: 2014 – Raikkonen – 1.26.480; 2015 – Raikkonen – 1.24.584 (-1.823);
    Mercedes: 2014 – Rosberg – 1.25.805 – 2015 – Rosberg – 1.24.321 (-1.484);
    Lotus: 2014 – Maldonado – 1.24.871 – 2015 – Grosjean – 1.24.067 (-0.804);

    Eight teams was in the same second (0.889s), except Mc Laren.

    2013, best time (Rosberg/Mercedes) 1.20.130 (+3.937s).
    Fast lap: Fisichella/Renault 2005: 1.15.641 (+8.426s).

    1. Profile Photo

      Balazsryche (@balazsryche)
      23rd February 2015, 14:22

      They used a different layout back in 2005.

      1. Cranio
        23rd February 2015, 15:57

        Yes… And in 2013 too… Just to compare with previous years.

  8. Hans
    23rd February 2015, 14:28

    Found this chart with max. speeds. Bottas (337.5kph) by 10.1kph faster than Alonso: http://pic.twitter.com/1cRk1zhh3k

    1. Profile Photo

      MattDS (@mattds)
      24th February 2015, 7:52

      “Susie Wolffova”. :)

      1. Profile Photo

        Ivan B (@njoydesign)
        24th February 2015, 14:29

        hahaha well spotted. What is going to be next time, Volkova? (Wolf is Volk in Russian)

  9. Profile Photo

    antonyob (@)
    23rd February 2015, 14:34

    It used to be called the phoney championship, now it may as well be one. Historically we only know from the 2nd race who is where. Other than the long predicted Mercedes domination of last season and the Brawn fluke that’s always been the case in modern f1.

    I do wonder though if Williams can maintain their revival, they were not considered a serious opponent last year so probably got what they wanted from Mercedes, this season they could well beat them. Will they continue to get the best?

    McLaren, in all likelihood, got B list parts and would now rather take a massive gamble than maintain that one way relationship.

  10. Profile Photo

    Sensord4notbeingafanboi (@peartree)
    23rd February 2015, 18:55

    Romain was only 2 tenths quicker on SS than S, simply put the ss doesn’t work on barcelona. With that in mind I can’t believe that Merc is only one to 1.5 secs quicker than Lotus mercedes. There’s more performance in aero and powerunit for sure.

    1. TC
      23rd February 2015, 19:21

      Bottas’ race stint in the morning was 4s per lap quicker than his first stint at the 2014 GP. Similarly Hamilton was lapping in the 1:27s the previous day on a race sim which compares her well with his first stint in 2014 (1:32s). Plenty of assumptions with that of course but hard to believe there’s not at least another 2s in the fastest times of the week, if not plenty more.

    2. Mr win or lose
      24th February 2015, 15:29

      But if the supersofts were just an incremental improvement, then Lotus seems to be doing very well, probably not as fast as Mercedes on pure pace, but rather close.

  11. Profile Photo

    patriots_fan (@f1007)
    23rd February 2015, 22:49

    if i had to speculate, looking at combined times in this testing McL is 1.9 secs off the fastest time, with their MGU-K turned off (assuming whole ERS is off) thats fast, n would be faster than ferrari i’d guess.

  12. kpcart
    24th February 2015, 17:48

    if f1 is like last year, with mercedes dominating then i am out of this sport. i wasnt convinced last year that merc went from 4th best to 1st best, they did not, instead they inherited the best engine and were the best car with that engine. last year for the first time in many, we saw not the best car win last year, but the best car of the bunch that had the best engine. this year i am hoping it will be closer, but these homologation rules on engines are pathetic and unsporting. from what was said in Barcelona, Ferrari and Renault are not even using many of their “tokens” , as they want to hold back to have bigger development for next year with the limited amount of development allowed. so we are in for another year of rubbish sport, a domination by one team. this was predicatable when they anounced these v6 turbos, that if one engine has an advantage at the start, then a domination is set, as development is too restricted to let the others catch up. f1 lives by its billing as the best racing series, purely by the speed of the cars, but as a sport, it is an epic fail, it just seems to get worse, and in the internet age, where people can express their displeasure, the pretentious nature of F1 is becoming more inherent for everyone to see. they changed the rules for 2014 and beyond, yet have made the sport worse, the competition is less, the entertainment value is less (from less competition and lower audio/visual sensation.) i have watched f1 for over 20 years, and last year was the first time i missed a few races, as i knew the outcome and found myself losing interest in seeing a 2nd grade driver like Rosberg winning(and seeing hamilton only keeping ahead), and also hearing f1 with the worst engine sound it has ever had. this year i will probably watch far less if the competition isnt closer at the top. f1 is becoming a farce. formula E in 5 years will be better, they have 8 maunufacturers for next year! how many does f1 have? for the first time ever, i am also looking to “pay” for motorsport coverage this year, and it is not f1 i will pay for, it is WEC! 5 YEARS ago i would have shot myself if i had read a post like this by myself, as i was a diehard f1 fan that stayed up all night to watch a race. i keep asking myself, why am i still watching f1? and the answer is always because it has great drivers…. and that is the only thing that makes it relevant, but as a sport, it is dreadful.

  13. Profile Photo

    dragoll (@dragoll)
    25th February 2015, 8:47

    Lap time improvement since last year graphs intrigue me. Obviously the tyre compounds are a big factor, but lets put that aside for the moment and look at data on face value.

    If we focus on the big 4 teams, Mercedes made the least progress, yet had a big gap to the rest of the pack from 2014 in the first place. Ferrari were huge improvers and may have been a 4th or 5th running team in 2015, and given the gap back to Williams, it might suggest that Williams might still have the edge on them. RBR made very little time from last year, indicating that perhaps 2015 is not going to be the year of the Bull. The pecking order from these values might suggest:
    1. Mercedes
    2. Williams
    3. Ferrari
    4. RBR

    However, throw into the mix the tyre compounds and add a slight adjustment for Mercedes and Ferrari for setting their times on Medium tyres and the pecking order might be altered with:
    1. Mercedes (by a country mile)
    2. Ferrari
    3. Williams
    4. RBR

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