2014 Testing - Bahrain 19-22 Feb

[JimClarkFan]

That is a pretty speedy time from Mclaren, 2.6 seconds off the pole lap last year.

Looks like the cars are not going to be nearly as slow as I feared [-o<

[FrukostScones]

That is a pretty speedy time from Mclaren, 2.6 seconds off the pole lap last year.

Looks like the cars are not going to be nearly as slow as I feared [-o<

Bahrain is a very atypical circuit. It will be much worse on other tracks like Barcelona, Suzuka etc.

[Anon123]

That is a pretty speedy time from Mclaren, 2.6 seconds off the pole lap last year.

Looks like the cars are not going to be nearly as slow as I feared [-o<

At Catalunya winter testing last year they went faster than the pole time at Catalunya.

[dougskullery]

Any news on the tyres for Alonso's last run? He was fastest of all in the middle sector, so you'd imagine either soft or super soft.

Alonso sets the fastest middle sector time on soft tyres
why 1.6 seconds slower than maganussen, sandbagging or another?

what do you think?

Basically Ferrari is not looking for a sponsor, while McL is.

From what I've read, McLaren aren't looking for a sponsor at all: Honda have already starting paying them in advance of becoming title sponsor next year, but can't run any branding because of the Mercedes deal. And Vodafone are still paying 50% of their previous sponsorship because they withdrew from the deal early. But I may be wrong about that.

[bauc]

That is a pretty speedy time from Mclaren, 2.6 seconds off the pole lap last year.

Looks like the cars are not going to be nearly as slow as I feared [-o<

Bahrain is a very atypical circuit. It will be much worse on other tracks like Barcelona, Suzuka etc.

Yes, but this was not a lap time done on max power and max aero...all teams will still tune up their engine maps and increase the engine power as the grow confidence in the reliability of their package, and not to mention the fact that they will bring a lots of new parts for the 2nd Bahrain test and therefore naturally the cars will get even faster. I think that by the end of this season the new cars might be as fast as the last year cars, if not faster.

[bauc]

That is a pretty speedy time from Mclaren, 2.6 seconds off the pole lap last year.

Looks like the cars are not going to be nearly as slow as I feared [-o<

At Catalunya winter testing last year they went faster than the pole time at Catalunya.

This is due to the fact that from 2013 the engine map setup for race and qualy is the same, therefore most of the teams are setting their cars to be as balanced as possible on full & empty tanks...instead of just going for aggressive set up to blister the qualy times

[tomazy]

The one thing that I find usefoul time wise is this from autosport:

13:28 Of the three cars on track, we have Hulkenberg lapping in the 1m41s, Rosberg in the 1m38s, and Bottas in the 1m39s.

Williams was doing a race simulation during that time.
http://www.williamsf1.com/Team/Media/Ne ... t-Day-Two/

This was, I asume during late stages of the race simulation, and usefoul comperison is last years fastest lap from Williams 1:38.192 and fastest lap overall 1:36.961. That would be 2-3s slower than last year.

And now, if we asume, that McLarens lap (1:34.910) was done on a qualy sim and comapare ther qualy result last year 1:33.702 and pole position 1:32.330, they are 2.58s slower than last year.

The conclusion? Williams is as fast as McLaren???

Lots of assumptions I know

[dren]

Those laps seem to be a fair indicator. I know Mercedes was doing race sims. It would be nice to see how the tires hold up if we had the lap data to look at.

[321apex]

The one thing that I find usefoul time wise is this from autosport:

13:28 Of the three cars on track, we have Hulkenberg lapping in the 1m41s, Rosberg in the 1m38s, and Bottas in the 1m39s.

Williams was doing a race simulation during that time.
http://www.williamsf1.com/Team/Media/Ne ... t-Day-Two/

This was, I asume during late stages of the race simulation, and usefoul comperison is last years fastest lap from Williams 1:38.192 and fastest lap overall 1:36.961. That would be 2-3s slower than last year.

And now, if we asume, that McLarens lap (1:34.910) was done on a qualy sim and comapare ther qualy result last year 1:33.702 and pole position 1:32.330, they are 2.58s slower than last year.

The conclusion? Williams is as fast as McLaren???

Lots of assumptions I know

Nice logic , I buy it.
We are on a steep learning curve to understand the 2014F1, so at this time your theory could be useful. I have a feeling that each team is progressively upping the power output while still tring to figure out the gear ratios for the season, which will be frozen shortly.

I would say that all engine manufacturers told their teams to work their engines hard so they may tear them down on Monday and instill upgrades if necessary. 2600 km is supposed to be the life expectancy of an engine in 2014. On the dyno it is not possible to simulate the sort of weird bending the engine sees as a stress member in a chassis.

How many laps would that be at Sakhir?

[321apex]

Alonso sets the fastest middle sector time on soft tyres
why 1.6 seconds slower than maganussen, sandbagging or another?

what do you think?

Basically Ferrari is not looking for a sponsor, while McL is.

Mclaren's budget this year is bigger than in every year in their whole history. Look on their respective websites, Mclaren has more sponsors then Ferrari and Red Bull. Plus the +100 millions from Honda.
It's much more likely another posibillity: that Ferrari did not make a better job, and that their problems are much more structural than what they let us to know the correlation and the wind tunnel. It's more likely their problems are deep in their engineering department. Mclaren used the Toyota's Wind Tunnel in Koln, and that was the place where Mp4-27 was designed and developed during the whole 2012 season, so it's not the wind tunnel fault or correlation. The data from Koln's wind tunnel was set up and used in Mclaren's facilities at Woking. Mp4-28's faillure was not down to the wind tunnel, but that Mclaren has a history of low chassis, low noses, push-rod suspension. Pat Fry in the single moment of naivity/sincerity, said that their inability to develop the car in 2013 was not because of the wind tunnel, but because the development paths they took with the car after Spain. So, the brains, not the facilities are the problem.

Usually in the past, McLaren was showcasing their title sponsor during pre season testing, while this year they did not. I think the perception in the paddock that Martin Whitmarsh screwed up is clear since a major corporate sponsor Vodafone decided to split from McLaren, the second most successful team in F1.

What you are saying could be true, however any extra 100 mil is nice to have when you are funding a half a billion dollar F1 team and trying to launch series production of high end sports cars along with a new factory for them. Blank side pods provide evidence, that for some reason this 100 mil deal isn't closed yet, so who knows what tricks they are getting into in order to get a signature on the dotted line. IMHO

[gridwalker]

Alonso sets the fastest middle sector time on soft tyres
why 1.6 seconds slower than maganussen, sandbagging or another?

what do you think?

Basically Ferrari is not looking for a sponsor, while McL is.

From what I've read, McLaren aren't looking for a sponsor at all: Honda have already starting paying them in advance of becoming title sponsor next year, but can't run any branding because of the Mercedes deal. And Vodafone are still paying 50% of their previous sponsorship because they withdrew from the deal early. But I may be wrong about that.

Does anyone think it is possible that now McLaren are trying to sell cars under their own Marque, it may be useful for them to be raising arareness of their MP4-xx style branding outside of their core audience through such prominent positioning on the car? It certainly couldn't hurt, considering their less-than-catchy moniker for the MP4-12c ...

{Mods : Please move if too O/T. I was just curious to if anyone shared my opinion]

[atanatizante]

Last year car : 750+82HP for 6,67 sec./lap
This year car : 600+160HP for 33,33 sec./lap and almost 30% loss in downforce and 50kg heavier, though just in Qualy ... and also the tyres are harder now ...

So which car is faster? for both cases:
a) Qualy mode
b) Race mode

[mrluke]

Last year car : 750+82HP for 6,67 sec./lap
This year car : 600+160HP for 33,33 sec./lap and almost 30% loss in downforce and 50kg heavier, though just in Qualy ... and also the tyres are harder now ...

So which car is faster? for both cases:
a) Qualy mode
b) Race mode

Your bhp figures do not account for mgu-h.

[radosav]

Found some videos on other forums.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaqQQj7p4rQ[/youtube][youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csVltGGmfTU#t=61[/youtube]

[beelsebob]

Last year car : 750+82HP for 6,67 sec./lap
This year car : 600+160HP for 33,33 sec./lap and almost 30% loss in downforce and 50kg heavier, though just in Qualy ... and also the tyres are harder now ...

So which car is faster? for both cases:
a) Qualy mode
b) Race mode

Your bhp figures do not account for mgu-h.

And they are also an underestimate on the engine, where renault assert around 610bhp, and Mercedes assert more than that.