Mercedes GP W02

[Ganxxta]

In testing, practice and qualifying you can do what you like with the rear wing as often as you like.

Under race conditions, you're right.

Sure about that?

Yes, that is the way it is.

Ah ok thx , thought it would be only allowed for race use, good to know.

[Mandrake]

DArn, man thatcar must be an absolute dog! Look at that, fastest time of the week. Oh well, I better start buying some Force India kit cos I'm going to be eating plenty Curry this year.

Rear wing must be working again

[ell66]

Also, Rosbergs rear wing wasnt working.

"My rear wing wasn't working today, and that takes away so much from the lap time. It's really early days."

Sorry for being slightly off-topic, but my understanding was that the ARW only works when being withing sth. like 2 seconds from the driver in front.....is it now usable on every straight? Because else I fail to understand how that wing can be the source of slow laptimes.

wow your wrong on every acount. first of all drivers are free to use the device at any point during practice and qually, and second its within 1 second in the race not 2.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Ell66

I think Mandrake was asking a legitmate question.

Also, any problems for the Benz now?
Maybe alot of people did jump the gun eh?

Anyhow I thought I would add this as it kinda struck a chord!
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owNO5s3eln4[/youtube]

[Raptor22]

DArn, man thatcar must be an absolute dog! Look at that, fastest time of the week. Oh well, I better start buying some Force India kit cos I'm going to be eating plenty Curry this year.

Rear wing must be working again

After some proper Indian curry it'l be more than the rear wing working

[segedunum]

I don't think so. Things do look a little better than those +2 +3 second times they were putting in and they at least seem to be able to get a reasonably respectable time straight off so their qualifying might not be a real disaster, but their consistency is still a cause for concern.

They're all doing somewhat shorter runs than what everyone was doing yesterday, and yet, Webber was still lapping in the 23s doing 19 laps yesterday. Today, Schumacher quickly dropped off at the rate of a second each successive lap on a 10 lap run from the quick times he'd put in.

They will certainly need to pull out some stops to give the right messages to the Daimler hierarchy, but I'd still be worried. So, I take it the big and magical upgrade for Bahrain isn't necessary now?

[Donuts]

10:14 Schumacher regains the top spot with a 1m20.352s, the fastest time of the week so far

After yesterdays interview in Autosport with Nico Rosberg basically saying that the car is a dog and put all his faith in the updates for Bahrain. They probably are running really low on fuel just to keep Norbert Haug happy, but that won't last for long.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

I don't think so. Things do look a little better than those +2 +3 second times they were putting in and they at least seem to be able to get a reasonably respectable time straight off so their qualifying might not be a real disaster, but their consistency is still a cause for concern.

They're all doing somewhat shorter runs than what everyone was doing yesterday, and yet, Webber was still lapping in the 23s doing 19 laps yesterday. Today, Schumacher quickly dropped off at the rate of a second each successive lap on a 10 lap run from the quick times he'd put in.

They will certainly need to pull out some stops to give the right messages to the Daimler hierarchy, but I'd still be worried. So, I take it the big and magical upgrade for Bahrain isn't necessary now?

Thats still coming.

But an improvement is what we have from last year. For Daimler that is what needs to be demonstrated.

[segedunum]

Oh right. Well that's a relief. Just like last year?

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

Oh right. Well that's a relief. Just like last year?

I never saw the W01 top any timesheets last year.

Im not that naive to think the Mercedes is the fastest car out there. But Massa isnt hanging about and doing a similar stint to Schumacher.
The Red Bull looks to have consistency, and we know it will have pace.

If Mercedes can start the year 0.5 seconds off the RB7 I think we can class that as progress. Note, thats not the target!

[raymondu999]

Wasn't Rosberg on top a couple of times in 2010 testing? Or was that in Bahrain FP?

[Morteza]

Wasn't Rosberg on top a couple of times in 2010 testing? Or was that in Bahrain FP?

Are you referring to this Raymond?
http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/ ... 10476.html

Rosberg was also the fastest in the 2nd practice of 2010 Bahrain GP and the second fastest after Alonso in the 3rd practice.

[JohnsonsEvilTwin]

The weather made life difficult for the 11 teams testing at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya on Saturday, as sporadic rain hampered their programmes at the Spanish circuit. Mercedes GP’s Nico Rosberg ended the day at the top of the timesheets with a best time of 1m 21.686s, which he set before the rain began to fall.

Not outright pace. The conditions werent condusive to seeing who had the fastest car.

[Mandrake]

wow your wrong on every acount. first of all drivers are free to use the device at any point during practice and qually, and second its within 1 second in the race not 2.

I'm very sorry for being so wrong
I simply don't have the time to follow everything in its smallest detail on this forum, the activity and postcount is amazing in this forum. So please forgive my lack of knowledge and thanks a lot for putting together that nice and informative answer to my question.

On topic:
It would be great if Pirelli had already started to use different colours on the different tire types. Then we could shed a bit more light on the relative long run performance of the cars.

MSC dropping off quickly could mean he's on a different compound than Mark Webber, which would still leave us clueless about real pace.

So let's just focus on the car development (in case there is any ) and wait for the final test and/or the first race!

[raymondu999]

Could be. I don't really remember much tbh. I just remember seeing Rosberg on top of some timesheet at the beginning of 2010