Pup wrote:I suppose the time gap could also be down to the Renault teams really not having been able to do any real setup work. So maybe that plus tires and fuel do explain it.
But what you say has relevance - even if they can run several laps at full power, that's not where they need to be. They need to be able to run a significant portion of a race distance at full power.
Times five.
Still, it's progress.
I think, it really is hard to say where any of them are at right now. Several teams look good, but we have no idea about fuel loads and given this is testing, there is no requirement for the cars to actually comply with the FIA regulations.
Teams do a lot of things during testing to look good for sponsors. In previous years, teams have been known to run under-weight cars on low fuel LOADS when sponsors are at the track, to artificially improve lap times, and potentially open the cheque book a little further...
If Mercedes and/or McLaren do have finance/sponsorship/performance pressures (following McL's 2013 performance, no need to comment...) and Mercedes understand their engine package well enough (which they look like they do), Mercedes could easily tweak the PU to run outside the regs for a hot lap or two.
How? Remove the fuel flow restriction and increase boost and/or allow the ES to discharge 5MJ (full charge) or more (all generated power) in one lap.
I think Red Bull had no intentions of coming up with a fix for the RB10 by the first test in Bahrain. We may not even see much from them at the next Bahrain test, but they are gathering data and gaining knowledge. Adrian Newey and Christian Horner are not to be underestimated, at FP1 in Melbourne we will know where they are really at. (Is it ideal? No, but they will recover.)
Caterham have impressed me greatly, but again I take that with a grain of salt (It is testing and they want to look good in front of their sponsors...)
We will know the full story for all of the teams at end of Q1 in Melbourne...