F1 2016 pre-season testing

[Juzh]

Both ric and vet improved 0.8s on their ultra softs compared to their previous runs on super softs.

[gandharva]

Vettel: 1:22.810m
Ricciardo: 1:23.525m (+0.715)

Both times set on UltraSoft. Assuming they were on more or less equal fuel levels, that's an improvement of about half a second for RedBull in comparison to 2015 qualifying gap to Ferrari.

[Vasconia]

Wow! great lap-times!!! but I think Ferrari should make a greater milleage, 37 laps dont look so good. Meanwhile Fernando has done 60! good news for McLaren!

[f1316]

We should probably use testing last year as a comparison rather than gp qualifying, no?

I think Mercedes did a similar time to Vettel's on the medium last year, so still some way to go. That said, that came after more running - closer to Melbourne spec and with more rubber down.

[Thunder]

Lap Count at Lunch Break:

Rosberg (81), Alonso (70), Verstappen (59), Ricciardo (58), Bottas (54), Ericsson (49), Perez (48), Vettel (45), Palmer (41), Wehrlein (36), Gutierrez (31)

Scary to see Alonso up there.

[FrukostScones]

Lap Count at Lunch Break:

Rosberg (81), Alonso (70), Verstappen (59), Ricciardo (58), Bottas (54), Ericsson (49), Perez (48), Vettel (45), Palmer (41), Wehrlein (36), Gutierrez (31)

Scary to see Alonso up there.

more scary would be to be able to read ALO's mind atm.

[Alonsofor2017]

Would be interesting to see if McLaren and Mercedes do some fast runs after the break, more than a race distance so far for mclaren is good news

[turbof1]

Lap Count at Lunch Break:

Rosberg (81), Alonso (70), Verstappen (59), Ricciardo (58), Bottas (54), Ericsson (49), Perez (48), Vettel (45), Palmer (41), Wehrlein (36), Gutierrez (31)

Scary to see Alonso up there.

more scary would be to be able to read ALO's mind atm.

He'll probably be agitated he wasn't able to run more, having to prove a point from last year . Still early days though; last year at the end of the season they were also able to run around 2-4 race distances with each engine. Problem is each engine needs to able to run 4 race weekends, which is I believe around 12 race distances.

[Gridlock]

I think the McLaren pit were concerned about whether he'd come back to the pit or just head straight to the airport...

[KingHamilton01]

Hopefully McLaren have got A lot more scope to go faster and turn up the engine to do high speed run's, sure Alonso will want to see early enough what the car can do, although a lot of running different Engine Map's to experiment with no doubt first.

[Thunder]

If the Correlation is as exact as Boullier mentioned it to be i don't think you need to push Laptimes when it doesn't fit your Program. You basically get a very good glimpse of what the Car can do in the Simulator. That should be enough for Fernando, if his 2016 drive was ever in question (wich i still doubt).

[KingHamilton01]

If the Correlation is as exact as Boullier mentioned it to be i don't think you need to push Laptimes when it doesn't fit your Program. You basically get a very good glimpse of what the Car can do in the Simulator. That should be enough for Fernando, if his 2016 drive was ever in question (wich i still doubt).

Im hearing more and more positive thing's about the car now, I think with the solid running so far that will give us a great foundation to push on into next week and get some good updates onto the car along with those already in the pipeline. Before McLaren couldn't even do the Aero testing like this last year, very positive imo.

[Juzh]

I think Mercedes did a similar time to Vettel's on the medium last year, so still some way to go.

Rosberg did it on softs.

[ferkan]

Hard to compare it to the last year since this year in Barcelona its definitely warmer then last time around. Plus we don't know if these were real qualy runs or they carried a bit more fuel.

Thing is, last year at the testing RB and Ferrari were much closer to each other. Not this time, big advantage to Ferrari, and it is faster in all 3 sectors. I guess there is about .8-1 second advantage with Ferrari PU though.

[Cenzo]

I don't get why this little battle on ultrasofts, but it is ok... a pinch of pepper.
Ferrari by the way seems ok, they overturned the car from last year!