2015 Pre-season Testing

[f1316]

I presume no one has the sector times? Was interesting that James Allen mentioned Williams and Ferrari only being one tenth down in final sector yesterday, which is perhaps more representative of Melbourne.

I also wonder if Mercedes - who have traditionally been good at warming up tyres - might have more of an advantage in colder conditions for this reason?

[Jordan44]

Pat Symonds claims Mercedes might have 2012-style tyre deg issues

Lol, with the kindest will in the world, Mercedes could comfortably afford an extra pitstop on the entire field and still finish 1-2.

I fail to see how they could make that mistake again. The tyre compounds haven't changed too much have they? Surely it wasn't by chance that their tyre issues evaporated during 2014. They'll know why and will have made sure it doesn't appear again.

[lewishamilton90]

http://www.giornalemotori.com/2015/03/0 ... -mercedes/
Sembra che la Mercedes ha decisamente preso il sopravvento”, ha detto Symonds, “abbiamo lavorato duramente per tenere il loro passo. Anche se non si può quantificare esattamente dove sono le nostre lacune, sembra che Mercedes sono ancora un po distante da noi , con un divario ancora consistente translate please

[f1316]

Pat Symonds claims Mercedes might have 2012-style tyre deg issues

Lol, with the kindest will in the world, Mercedes could comfortably afford an extra pitstop on the entire field and still finish 1-2.

I fail to see how they could make that mistake again. The tyre compounds haven't changed too much have they? Surely it wasn't by chance that their tyre issues evaporated during 2014. They'll know why and will have made sure it doesn't appear again.

Pirelli made much more durable tyres for 2014 because of the increased torque. That may have helped Mercedes or they have completely solved the issue on their own (or a combination of the two).

I had read Paul embry saying this year's tyres would seem more aggressive but just read James Allen saying the opposite, so who knows. Would personally prefer to see the teams having a more difficult time with tyres as it was too easy to do one stoppers at many gps last year.

If they did though, there's not much I've seen which says Mercedes would be harder hit than others- then again We haven't had representative conditions yet.

[GM7]

2 weeks in Barcelona:

[tranquility2k4]

All this Merc having tyre problems talk is rubbish. Last season Merc without a doubt had the best tyre deg of anyone. They took the mic sometimes. Lewis at Barcelona last year on Friday put in an incredible run butt then they changed his setup overnight and he wasn't happy over the weekend.

Anyway, I'm sure I remember reading Button saying that everyone was struggling with degradation apart from Mercedes. Anyone see that article? Also, everything I've seen Symonds say has not suggested anything about this so where's the source?

If anything Merc has been too kind on its tyres so far, not getting head into them which will cause them to blister in low temperatures, but not in normal race conditions...

Update found out:

Jenson Button, who completed more than 100 laps for what was McLaren's strongest day, added: "They are unbelievably quick and we are obviously a long way off, but we don't know what fuel everyone is running.

"The only thing you can look at are the long runs, which are very, very interesting. Mercedes is miles in front of anyone on long runs but some of the cars do have degradation."

This is from autosport. In otherwords, Jenson is saying Merc are miles ahead on long runs but this may be because other cars have worse deg than Merc... not the other way round. If Merc have same deg then they're even further in-front.

[djos]

Tbh i think RedBull are keeping their powder dry, imo they'll be clear 2nd best in Melbourne.

[rowano]

Wow. McHonda a second slower and half the distance of FI who only did two days of running. I didn't expect them to hit the ground running but that is a poor showing. There must be a lot of frustration and head scratching going on.

[Manoah2u]

unlikely, but imagine the look on everybody's faces if they turned out to be majorly sandbagging and playing around and at Q3 smash a pole with a 2 second lead over Merc

hey, a man's gotta dream. what else are we gonna do waiting the coming 12 days before the Melbourne weekend?

[Vasconia]

2 weeks in Barcelona:

http://image.noelshack.com/fichiers/201 ... 862172.jpg

Poor Mclaren fans, they must be totally depressed after taking a look to this data. Anyway I am sure that Mclaren´s pace is much better than this, if their engine can last more than 5-6 laps. [-o<

[Vasconia]

Pat Symonds claims Mercedes might have 2012-style tyre deg issues

Lol, with the kindest will in the world, Mercedes could comfortably afford an extra pitstop on the entire field and still finish 1-2.

True, and this is very sad. This could be a problem for them if there is a team which can put them under pressure (which I dont think it will happen). Anyway I dont know if it is true what Symonds says because I haven´t noticed such problems.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

MERCEDES ABOUT ONE SECOND PER LAP FASTER THAN RIVALS

“We do know how the others are going,” Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg admitted, according to the Finnish newspaper Turun Sanomat.

“We have one guy who focuses solely on how fast the others are. We have data and graphs where we can see how the others are going,” he added.

According to Auto Motor und Sport, that Mercedes ‘guy’ is James Vowles, who is in charge of sophisticated GPS-based simulation programmes that will be showing the Brackley team’s lead and how far rivals Williams, Ferrari and Red Bull are behind.

Vowles admitted: “Mercedes knows almost as much about where Ferrari is as Ferrari does about itself. And vice versa.”

Reportedly, Mercedes’ programmes show that its genuine advantage over the next fastest car was a staggering eight tenths per lap in Barcelona.

And the aforementioned three chasers are apparently divided by just a single tenth.
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.
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Williams’ calculations appear similar, with technical boss Pat Symonds revealing that Mercedes’ gap remains “pretty similar to what it was a year ago”.

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Pat Symonds claims Mercedes might have 2012-style tyre deg issues

Lol, with the kindest will in the world, Mercedes could comfortably afford an extra pitstop on the entire field and still finish 1-2.

True, and this is very sad. This could be a problem for them if there is a team which can put them under pressure (which I dont think it will happen). Anyway I dont know if it is true what Symonds says because I haven´t noticed such problems.

Lewis was complaining that the tyres being TOO HARD and was believing that, may be on warmer temperatures it may get better for them. Day before yesterday, Crofty (Sky F1) was mentioning in "Ask Crofty" that Lewis was weaving a lot to put in temperatures. So, the problem might not be related to degradation, but could be wear related to lack of temperatures. In 2012 winter testing, their tyres were getting up to temperatures quickly and were posting good times, only to later realize that they are cooking it in the races. Change in tyre characteristics coupled with low temperatures may be the reason why there is so much wear.

[Vasconia]

1 second(or more) of advantage+ super reliable PU= A depressing season is coming!

[Richard]

1 second(or more) of advantage+ super reliable PU= A depressing season is coming!

The Williams-Ferrari-Red Bull battle could be very interesting.