2012 Testing - Barcelona 2: 1 - 4 March

[Mr.S]

DRS is not going to make a 23km/h deficit. In Barcelona I think it is likely to be around 10-18km/h at best among all teams.

The Mclaren is slow on Straightline Speed & to be honest it does not matter much anymore.RBR have shown you can be very slow on the straights & still win with ease

[george1981]

Has anyone else noticed that on Massa's runs he always seems to do a fast one followed by a really slow one, before going back to a similar pace as his fastest?

I don't have the times in front of me, but I seem to remember seeing Alonso simply pumping in 1:24s constantly without these slow down laps that Massa seems to always put in.

Just an observation without drawing any particular conclusions, but any thoughts would be welcome.

It could be something to do with managing the tyre life. Jenson Button said something last year when he missed his second run in qualiying that with those particular tyres you needed to do an out lap, quick lap, slow lap to let the tyres recover and then a second quick lap.
It could be related to that, get a hot lap and then a cool lap to put a heat cycle through the tyres, but then I'd imagine the team would know and tell Alonso to do the same.

[beelsebob]

Massa Wow. 1.24.4. 7 Lap & going.

If this is a Hard Tyre Run then Damn Good Job Ferrari.

And look at the degradation. So LESS. DAMN F2012 has potential. Mercedes' times are falling all over the place due to tyre wear.

Uhhh, when did that happen?

[buki_nelu]

A few pics of the cars from this morning. Nothing obvious yet in terms of new parts.

http://www.formula1.com/gallery/testing/2012/713.html

This is one big air-cooling hole on the back of the Caterham car

[f1316]

A few pics of the cars from this morning. Nothing obvious yet in terms of new parts.

http://www.formula1.com/gallery/testing/2012/713.html

This is one big air-cooling hole on the back of the Caterham car

I was thinking about that earlier. The Red Bull has a pretty darn big one too, and it occurred to me that it was the Renault Engine that claimed to need some off-throttle blowing to cool the engine (or something like that). Therefore, have the Renault engined cars been forced to be pretty radical with cooling? The Ferrari doesn't have any holes there, for example.

[f1316]

A few pics of the cars from this morning. Nothing obvious yet in terms of new parts.

http://www.formula1.com/gallery/testing/2012/713.html

This is one big air-cooling hole on the back of the Caterham car

I was thinking about that earlier. The Red Bull has a pretty darn big one too, and it occurred to me that it was the Renault Engine that claimed to need some off-throttle blowing to cool the engine (or something like that). Therefore, have the Renault engined cars been forced to be pretty radical with cooling? The Ferrari doesn't have any holes there, for example.

Red Bull hole, for comparison (admittedly a lot smaller, but still sizeable)

http://img3.auto-motor-und-sport.de/For ... 574210.jpg

[kooleracer]

The stint started great lets see how it ends. on Softs btw

59 1:28.323 +4.331
60 1:28.335 +0.012
61 1:28.413 +0.078
62 1:28.863 +0.450

[Hangaku]

It could be something to do with managing the tyre life. Jenson Button said something last year when he missed his second run in qualiying that with those particular tyres you needed to do an out lap, quick lap, slow lap to let the tyres recover and then a second quick lap.
It could be related to that, get a hot lap and then a cool lap to put a heat cycle through the tyres, but then I'd imagine the team would know and tell Alonso to do the same.

It's to bake the tyres - it gets more life out of them.

Consider this comparison:

If you make toast in the toaster, you wait until it's half done, and then pop it out. When it's cool, you push it down again, wait until it's nearly done and pop it back out. Then it cools, and finally you push it down until the toast is complete. From this, you will get un-burnt, VERY toasted bread, that you can get about 40 laps out of. It's just like that.

[thevlack]

From Autosport.

"Our job of interpreting testing has got harder: Pirelli's latest batch of tyres haven't been coloured up yet - so no one can tell compounds!"

Bad News for us.

[Ferraripilot]

Looks like Nico is on a race sim

[rowano]

From Autosport.

"Our job of interpreting testing has got harder: Pirelli's latest batch of tyres haven't been coloured up yet - so no one can tell compounds!"

Bad News for us.

As if interpreting testing is't hard enough as it is

I wonder if this is a request from any teams to keep data 'more secret'?

[DAMNINice]

AMuS has some pictures in their album, too..

this pic is from there showing the huuuuge outlet of the caterham, too..

This thing is far away from aerodynamic perfect IMO...




here is the link to the full album:
http://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/form ... 45394.html

[FrukostScones]

Looks like Nico is on a race sim

nah, he is just trying to make the soft tyre last with a medium heavy fuel load.
And failing.
Too bad the Mercedes is chewing the most important compound. So no free transatlantic flight for JET I guess.

[Ferraripilot]

Looks like Nico is on a race sim

nah, he is just trying to make the soft tyre last with a medium heavy fuel load.
And failing.
Too bad the Mercedes is chewing the most important compound. So no free transatlantic flight for JET I guess.

That's a heavy fuel load for sure. And it doesn't appear they are falling off as quickly as last week. And I believe on lap 5 of that run Nico must have run into traffic or gone off into the clag as the time is 1:33 followed by a 1:29 when the first 4 laps were low 1:28s

[kooleracer]

sauber on supersofts:

58 1:30.255
59 1:28.339 -1.916
60 1:28.348 +0.009
61 1:28.586 +0.238
62 1:28.730 +0.144
63 1:28.642 -0.088
64 1:28.960 +0.318
65 1:28.743 -0.217
66 1:28.840 +0.097

Very conistent great midfield battle this year.