Mclaren Mercedes MP4-25

[De Jokke]

Q. So no green paint tomorrow?

GP: You never know.

There was green paint today, the little liar!

Euhm, "you never know" does NOT mean no...

[Pup]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81193

interview with paffet

dunno what to think...

No surprises is always positive. I don't think anyone will know where they stand relative to the other teams until the first race.

[timbo]

No surprises is always positive. I don't think anyone will know where they stand relative to the other teams until the first race.

They would estimate, that for sure, and pretty close IMO.

[ringo]

any video?

[timd]

Last year when Lewis first drove it he got ragged and lost it a couple times. When i saw that and he was still slow i thought he must have been pushing too hard trying to target other peoples times. He strikes me as the type to see the pace and try to make it regardless of what he's there to do. For a few laps at least.

Lets see what happens tomorrow.

From the sounds of it Gary was not blown away but he is only there to see if the simulator is comparible to reality so the models are right. Personally i think because it has some new idea's it might take a bit to develop first few races.

The missing front end can always come back as the track gets some rubber on it and then the car's right.

[BreezyRacer]

This still looks like a DDD, with the rear tie rods going across the opening.
The angle of the top level seems pretty steep.

Nice pic for a very large diffuser indeed!

[Rikhart]

Slightly OT, but:

Isn´t it silly to run a test driver for a whole day? Shouldn´t the limited track time be handed over to one of the race drivers?

[De Jokke]

found this comic on another forum after today's testing:

[De Jokke]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81193

interview with paffet

dunno what to think...

No surprises is always positive. I don't think anyone will know where they stand relative to the other teams until the first race.

True, this forum member gave a very good view on this first day, I think.



QUOTE (dabrasco @ Feb 1 2010, 22:30)
its crazy cos just a few days ago, we had Mclaren fans goin to the Ferrari thread to gloat abit cos of the rumors (I warned yall to chill )

now we get Ferrari fans over here doing the same. I bet "momentum" will swing back and forth over this testing season.


As for the Mclaren fans feeling all down or doom-mongering... chill the f out. As a Mclaren fan that followed testing very closely last season and saw how much of a hole we were in, this doesnt look like a hole at all... at least, not yet.

Pafett was 1.3 secs off Massa's time... give or take some kilos of fuel, give or take driver skill and it doesnt look bad at all... obviously we dont know what program Ferrari was running, but we do know Pafett set his best time in the afternoon when he said we were running heavy tank in long runs...

apart from that, his stints generally were pretty much in the 14s and very high 13s all day...fairly decent (esp. compared to last year).

Barichello says our car looked super serious on the straights and indeed it was fastest out the box (I followed testing).

Pafett said the car is very stable in high speed corners (I expected and predicted that considering we replaced our Beyonce ass with a Jessica Alba one)

the issues with the front tire and grip are what most other teams are facing, and I believe something they will be able to fix to an extent.

Pafett also said car behaved just like they expected.... Martin has said more than once, they set aggressive targets for the car.

Pafett is understandably cautious bcos u never know in F1, as hard as you may have worked, some team can come through and Brawn u out...so u cant be too jumpy


In conclusion, there is nothing that says come Bahrain, Mclaren will be on pole..... there is also nothing that says, come Bahrain, Mclaren might not reach Q3.

It is a decent enough start when u put everything into perspective.

Tmrw, Hamilton drives....apart from his stint times (not fastest lap), his body language and interviews after the test will shed more light on the situation...though, I reckon he will be like Pafett too, optimistic but cautious... so we will be none the wiser

interesting but frustrating times

[De Jokke]

any video?

Here are some testing videos:

first videos of today

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRaSjPMJ37E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhKUAiWy5-0

[De Jokke]

Last year when Lewis first drove it he got ragged and lost it a couple times. When i saw that and he was still slow i thought he must have been pushing too hard trying to target other peoples times. He strikes me as the type to see the pace and try to make it regardless of what he's there to do. For a few laps at least.

Lets see what happens tomorrow.

From the sounds of it Gary was not blown away but he is only there to see if the simulator is comparible to reality so the models are right. Personally i think because it has some new idea's it might take a bit to develop first few races.

The missing front end can always come back as the track gets some rubber on it and then the car's right.

That's my view of lewis too .

[De Jokke]

Slightly OT, but:

Isn´t it silly to run a test driver for a whole day? Shouldn´t the limited track time be handed over to one of the race drivers?

That's exactly what I was thinking too. But maybe the fans would start thinking that one of the two race driver would get preferential treatment, because now, both jenson and lewis have each 7 days and otherwise it would be 7 vs 7.5 or 7.5 vs 7.

But still, with this limited amount of tracktime and the fact that lewis had a great deal of input in it, it wouldn't have been a bad idea to replace gary in the afternoon by lewis. Anyway, today is over, tomorrow is lewis' turn. Let's see what he can do, but I'm betting we won't get any wiser tomorrow.
One thing is for sure, if the mac isn't within the first three cars come the third test session (what is is, barcelona I think), then we are in for another tough year (looking at last year).

[FLC]

found this comic on another forum after today's testing:

That's just a gesture for Mercedes (Petronas green...)

[PlatinumZealot]

I will be content even if the car is 0.5 second behind.. That means there is a 0.1 second advantage for the #2 car.

[mx_tifoso]

Shiny new tires and clean bling wheelz. (I tried saying this in a serious voice but couldn't hold back from laughing, wait, I mean I loled.)

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From Scarbs' Twitter page.