With just two weeks to go before the 2013 Formula One season gets underway in Melbourne, the final four-day test took place in Barcelona, with two days of wet weather followed by two days of dry running. This enabled the teams to sample the entire range of 2013 Pirelli tyres and finally provided conditions representative to racing.
, and Hamilton set this time in 5 lap stint
I don't know but I believe the softest tyres are half a second faster than last year but of course this year the loss of DDRS and highly flexible wings should slow down the top teams.Nando wrote:I think new tires are playing quite a big role in that performance jump too.beelsebob wrote:The most we know is that it's significantly quicker than last year's car (at least 2.8 seconds quicker) around Barcelona.
We can probably extrapolate a bit more from that – we know the top teams tend to gain about 1-1.5 seconds a lap between years, so we can reasonably say that the Merc is likely right up there with the top teams, but probably not ahead of them.
Has anyone estimated how much the new tires contribute?
Thanks, yea and not to mention the lack of DRS everywhere like last year.Anon123 wrote:I don't know but I believe the softest tyres are half a second faster than last year but of course this year the loss of DDRS and highly flexible wings should slow down the top teams.
Add to that, restricted usage of DRS to the extent of only on start/stop straight.Anon123 wrote:I don't know but I believe the softest tyres are half a second faster than last year but of course this year the loss of DDRS and highly flexible wings should slow down the top teams.Nando wrote:I think new tires are playing quite a big role in that performance jump too.beelsebob wrote:The most we know is that it's significantly quicker than last year's car (at least 2.8 seconds quicker) around Barcelona.
We can probably extrapolate a bit more from that – we know the top teams tend to gain about 1-1.5 seconds a lap between years, so we can reasonably say that the Merc is likely right up there with the top teams, but probably not ahead of them.
Has anyone estimated how much the new tires contribute?
But again, we don't know if the teams are respecting this in testing or not. It may be that Hamilton had his DRS open all over the place. That would make a valid comparison to last year's pole time, but not really set a benchmark for this year.prince wrote:Add to that, restricted usage of DRS to the extent of only on start/stop straight.
From the live action that I have been watching for 2 days now, it is very clear that teams are not using it anywhere other than the main straight. Only one time that I watched a car opening DRS, other than on main straight, it was a marussia.beelsebob wrote:But again, we don't know if the teams are respecting this in testing or not. It may be that Hamilton had his DRS open all over the place. That would make a valid comparison to last year's pole time, but not really set a benchmark for this year.prince wrote:Add to that, restricted usage of DRS to the extent of only on start/stop straight.
yep. on softs!lewishamilton90 wrote:lewis 1 20 5
No one would do that because that isn't valuable data for this year. Whats the point testing things that aren't legal for this season. Destroying 1 set of soft tires because of that isn't really smart.beelsebob wrote:But again, we don't know if the teams are respecting this in testing or not. It may be that Hamilton had his DRS open all over the place. That would make a valid comparison to last year's pole time, but not really set a benchmark for this year.prince wrote:Add to that, restricted usage of DRS to the extent of only on start/stop straight.
don't jinx it mateAnon123 wrote:Lotus seem to breaking down on every other lap, the Mclaren drivers don't understand their car, Ferrari have evolved a dog with wind tunnel problems and Red Bull have evolved their car which relied heavily on it's DDRS to qualify well at the back end of 2012. I don't want to get my hopes up for the W04 but things aren't looking bad.
