prince wrote:Moose wrote:Niki is not worried about the time the Ferrari is doing, he is worried about how quick and stable it looks in the corners.
It's clear that the Sauber is running flat out to try to get headlines, and hence sponsorship. There's never a sign of a worse car than a mid fielder suddenly appearing at the top of the time sheets in testing every day.
And when that same
mid fielder, who had clocked a test best of 1.30.161s (super soft) last year at the same test, suddenly shows a pace gain of 9 seconds (that too with soft) and clocks 1.21.541s, then it is a cause of worry for Merc.
Not really, no. That's just a sign that the Ferrari engine actually works this year, and they're not (like McLaren) pooling around trying to figure out all the things that can explode on it. Or are you trying to assert that the McLaren is 15 seconds a lap slower than last year's?
None of these cars (other than possibly the Sauber) are running anywhere close to their ultimate pace.
Ted in his last notebook was mentioning that, he heard from some Merc engineers that this year, it won't be a cake walk for Merc.
And I'm sure that's true - but I'm also sure it's not Sauber that's going to be pushing them.
BRAWN GP did it.
Always an exception that proves a rule, though... BRAWN GP were also... looking for a sponsor
Put it this way, if Sauber were in BRAWN GP's position, we would have seen them top the time sheets every day, rather than being beaten by Ferrari twice (who certainly aren't running at their max pace).