2015 Pre-season Testing

[Cale24]

Looking increasingly like a tight fight behind the Mercs for 2015 - RB; Ferrari; Williams all close and then McLaren; Lotus are hard to place. Hard to gauge how much each team's respective engine/aero update for Melbourne will affect things too.

On a side not that McLaren livery looks pretty boss in this overcast light- neon orange ftw. If they could cook up some 'black chrome' to better compliment the regular silver chrome, even better. That said, was hoping for something different like everyone else.

Anyone know why the cars no longer feature those dinky windshield lips on the forward edge of cockpits anymore, like a few years back?


*Edit: Speaking of side note - livery - inside McLaren pit area there's now a lot of white and Alonso just posted this https://twitter.com/alo_oficial/status/ ... 7577065474

[Neno]

I wonder does Lotus doing "glory runs" or not. Are they chasing sponsors or not. Is this pace they can go or they can go faster. I can't really place them anywhere because they have completly new car, new engine and probably different program all together. I dont know if in this stage they would decide to push it when you have so much nwer things to learn about both engine and car behavior and re-learn many other things like cooling etc. From what I heard from Windsor in youtube channel about E23 in Jerez, he didnt sound so optimistic E23 is good car in terms he saw lot of front breaking etc. And I didnt really saw any info, from Ted's Notebook or any other F1 insider who was in both Jerez and Barcelona about car performance, does he look good, how car behave in corners. Weird really.

[Cale24]

I wonder does Lotus doing "glory runs" or not. Are they chasing sponsors or not. Is this pace they can go or they can go faster. I can't really place them anywhere because they have completly new car, new engine and probably different program all together. I dont know if in this stage they would decide to push it when you have so much nwer things to learn about both engine and car behavior and re-learn many other things like cooling etc. From what I heard from Windsor in youtube channel about E23 in Jerez, he didnt sound so optimistic E23 is good car in terms he saw lot of front breaking etc. And I didnt really saw any info, from Ted's Notebook or any other F1 insider who was in both Jerez and Barcelona about car performance, does he look good, how car behave in corners. Weird really.

My greatest interest about Lotus is how much of an effect James Allison had on the recent cars there and how much of that is 'lost' to Ferrari...

[Neno]

My greatest interest about Lotus is how much of an effect James Allison had on the recent cars there and how much of that is 'lost' to Ferrari...

This new car has zero DNA from Allison. This is completly new car (and engine), you could say it's first Chester's car. Also Allison produced that horrible E22, let's not forget that.

[Cale24]

This new car has zero DNA from Allison. This is completly new car (and engine), you could say it's first Chester's car. Also Allison produced that horrible E22, let's not forget that.

Yeah for sure, I just mean in general terms as the 2012 and 2013 cars were great. The 2014 design decisions taken could have been more on Allison or Chester's side- anyone can get it wrong- but the 2015 car certainly seems to be a step in the right direction so far, its more the longer term that I wonder about.
In some ways its a little like Newey / and the guys below and /or Prodromou...

[Silent Storm]

This new car has zero DNA from Allison. This is completly new car (and engine), you could say it's first Chester's car. Also Allison produced that horrible E22, let's not forget that.

Are you serious?? James Allison left Lotus in May, I don't think he had any contribution to the design of E22.

[turbof1]

This new car has zero DNA from Allison. This is completly new car (and engine), you could say it's first Chester's car. Also Allison produced that horrible E22, let's not forget that.

Are you serious?? James Allison left Lotus in May, I don't think he had any contribution to the design of E22.

You have to understand these cars aren't your normally run-of-the-mill developments from previous years. Teams have been preparing for 2014 atleast 2 years in advance.

[iotar__]

Why so much excitement about names? Technical directors are not some mad scientists/Emmett Brown types designing cars on napkins but more like administrators that designate work and make choices. Same for Ferrari, most of the people that "designed" bad 2014 car are still there, I think. Time, development and corrections of mistakes are important in both cases.

Anyway, looking at times Lotus looks comparable on SS to Toro Rosso which with Merc engine is nothing to brag about. Assumptions: runs were comparable and Maldo is faster than boy-genius .

[seeraz]

So the new MGU-K seal in Mclaren is also failed ? is this true ?

[Cale24]

Why so much excitement about names? Technical directors are not some mad scientists/Emmett Brown types designing cars on napkins but more like administrators that designate work and make choices. Same for Ferrari, most of the people that "designed" bad 2014 car are still there, I think. Time, development and corrections of mistakes are important in both cases.

There's a reason Ferrari have offered anything and everything to get Newey in the team- the CV is important. Allison has in a sense shadowed Brawn through their careers (who Ferrari have also tried to get back to no avail) so the engineering / aero creativity is certainly a component in the end result, despite it being a team effort. Staying on Ferrari, how USELESS Tombazis stayed around so long is a mystery, guy clearly was no serious talent. His departure was the best news for a long time IMO.
Of course the team environment/ politics /personalities between these components sometimes clash- James Key leaving Sauber an example, Aldo Costa leaving Ferrari another.

[Silent Storm]

This new car has zero DNA from Allison. This is completly new car (and engine), you could say it's first Chester's car. Also Allison produced that horrible E22, let's not forget that.

Are you serious?? James Allison left Lotus in May, I don't think he had any contribution to the design of E22.

You have to understand these cars aren't your normally run-of-the-mill developments from previous years. Teams have been preparing for 2014 atleast 2 years in advance.

I get it that teams have been preparing for 2 years for 2014 but a bad car's blame cannot be put on Alisson alone. It could be that Lotus started late with their 2014 car, we know they don't have the resources of the big teams to keep developing current and next years car and they were really pushing on the updates in second half of 2013

[turbof1]

I'm not saying he's fully responsible, but neither is it true he didn't make any contribution to it.

I do follow you that the car is a team effort and thus the team thoroughly failed with it.

[jericho]

So the times doesn't mean all that much, but lets predict the order:

1: Mercedes
a (very) smal gap to:
2: Ferrari/ Red Bull
4: Williams
5: Lotus/Sauber/Torro Rosso -> about the same pace i think..

Mclaren didn't do a race sim, so can't say how fast the car really is. If they get a trouble free car, i think we'll be suprised!

[Neno]

Does anyone have site link who watch possible simulation testing times in long runs and compare them? I know last year or year previous there was a blog with that. They watched testings and laptimes and calculated possible peace of the cars, does anyone sandbaging, are they maybe run low on fuel etc. There were also graphs. I can't find it now.

[Neno]

today
LAPTIMES MALDONADO
Pastor Maldonado is doing a longer stint on the medium tyre. His laptimes: 1:30.7, 1:31.5, 1:31.3, 1:31.1, 1:30.9, 1:31.3, 1:31.3, 1:31.2, 1:30.8 and 1:30.9.

LAP TIMES KVYAT
Daniil Kvyat has just pitted for fresh tyres. The lap times from the first stint in his race sim on the soft tyre: 1:30.9, 1:30.7, 1:31.2, 1:31.8, 1:31.6, 1:32.1, 1:32.4 and 1:32.4.

yesterday
RACE SIM RED BULL
Red Bull Racing is doing a race sim. Ricciardo's pit board indicated he had 65 laps to go and that has counted down to 57 laps to go. The lap times from his first stint on soft tyres: 1:31.0, 1:31.0, 1:31.3, 1:30.9, 1:31.6 and 1:32.2.

Those are not bad times by Maldonado if we compare differences in tire and longer stint.