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.
Well, it's wrong. The layout, as far as I've seen (and I've seen full laps), is identical. There are some ways in which Barcelona can be faster in winter testing, but they're not layout. For reference, Merc have also gone 2 seconds a lap faster than they went, and 1.5 seconds a lap faster than anyone went during last year's testing.turbof1 wrote:I have picked that up somewhere; can't remember were though.
we will see tommorow if they can, Hamilton made this lap before noon, and this is not qualy simulation. First time was 5-6 lap run, when he made 1.20.8 on medium, and next time 1.20.5 on soft, but we dont know how many laps this stint will be long, because of red flagturbof1 wrote:They are not running the same track layout. Comparing the test times to the qualifying times is very fruitless. I do believe they can dive under 1:20:0 in qualy mode on supersofts.
I haven't had the opportunity to go through their lap by lap times, but if we take what Gary said to be true (granted that may be very hard for many people here to doWhen watching out on the track, most cars look good if they are on new tyres and especially good on low fuel, and then deteriorate as the tyres go past their best. But the Mercedes never looks very different whatever conditions it is running in.
) this would be a huge step forward for Merc
....Weren't Merc running the EBD in testing then? I'm not sure but I think someone here said that.beelsebob wrote:Well, it's wrong. The layout, as far as I've seen (and I've seen full laps), is identical. There are some ways in which Barcelona can be faster in winter testing, but they're not layout. For reference, Merc have also gone 2 seconds a lap faster than they went, and 1.5 seconds a lap faster than anyone went during last year's testing.turbof1 wrote:I have picked that up somewhere; can't remember were though.
Huh? How on earth would they run an EBD? Their exhaust exits are visible on the top of the car...Anon123 wrote:Weren't Merc running the EBD in testing then? I'm not sure but I think someone here said that.beelsebob wrote:Well, it's wrong. The layout, as far as I've seen (and I've seen full laps), is identical. There are some ways in which Barcelona can be faster in winter testing, but they're not layout. For reference, Merc have also gone 2 seconds a lap faster than they went, and 1.5 seconds a lap faster than anyone went during last year's testing.turbof1 wrote:I have picked that up somewhere; can't remember were though.
What Gary is describing isn't that the tyres aren't degrading, it's that the car is remaining balanced and docile even as the tyres degrade. This probably means it has a relatively large operating window already, that the front and rear tyres are degrading at a similar rate, and that the setup of the car seems to be forgiving.tbeeornottbee wrote:Personally I feel the biggest question is not are Red Bull sandbagging/where do Merc rank compared to the others, but rather have Mercedes got on top of their tyre deg/overheating issues?
Gary Anderson writes today on the BBC website;I haven't had the opportunity to go through their lap by lap times, but if we take what Gary said to be true (granted that may be very hard for many people here to doWhen watching out on the track, most cars look good if they are on new tyres and especially good on low fuel, and then deteriorate as the tyres go past their best. But the Mercedes never looks very different whatever conditions it is running in.
This is ridiculous. This team is completely changed from Honda. With the amount of big league talent they've brought in, there's no reason they couldn't be possibly quicker than Red Bull. Newey isn't infallible and Merc's new strength in depth could reasonably best him. BTW I'm a Ferrari guy, not some overzealous Merc fanboy just dreaming.Neno wrote:Dont be like that, every once when regulations change one team become top dog, it was ferrari, then renault, now red bull and this going sometime until regulations change again, and new team become top dog. It's not something you should worry about, Mercedes will NEVER win championship in this regulation era they were too far last season to win championship this year, also 3 more teams are better then them and beat them directly in devolopment area last year.LilDEF1 wrote: And that means what exactly? They'll be forever fast? Anyway I'm not talking about any particular team, I mean thing do change from time to time. I guess most people were worried Mercedes were gonna perform poorly this year as last year. I remember on AutoSPORT Live last year they always pointed how bad the car was with their tires. There was massive degradation, even though they were initially fast. This time at least they don't seem any worse compared to the Red Bulls and Mac. I guess that's what got most people hopeful. There is nothing wrong with that for sure.. I mean really now
Most of us this is hard to reckognize, but this is absolute truth. And please never compare Red Bull to Mercedes, it's like you comparing 3-dimensional team with 2 dimensional. Not even Hamilton can make that progress, he couldnt do it even in Mclaren.
Without published weights, nothing is even remotely obvious, yanno? It's all grasping at straws and trying to decipher a code of intentions, weight, tire use, weather conditions, public statements, and media prognostication so we can then make our own little decisions about how we want to address personal optimism and/or pessimism for the coming year.Ferraripilot wrote:bhallg2k wrote:Shame they don't publish weights.
Yes and no. Merc ran with a light load, that much was obvious. It was certainly enough for Lewis to bang a 1:20 and then do 7 more laps. I'd say a starting load of around 15-20kg?
It's possible someone will crack a 1:19 tomorrow for the simple benefit of keeping everyone curious.
