2013 Spanish Grand Prix - Barcelona

[SamH123]

Merc have not been strong in FP2 all season so I think they still have a good chance of pole
Wouldn't rule them out for pole but you almost can for the race

[godlameroso]

Well I got the precipitation prediction right. I admit my sources weren't dead on for the temperature, although it might still warm up a bit. I'm not so sure it will be in the high 20's C

[CHT]

How is the long run pace comparison today? Did the harder compound help Merc on their long runs?

[GrizzleBoy]

I would say no.

Red Bull seemed to have the most consistently fast times.

Ferrari and Lotus were there or thereabouts.

Merc were nowhere near the speed or consistency of the other teams.

But as always we don't really know what is truly happening in the garage or out on track. Lewis' numerous requests regarding pace were all given a reply of "on target" so who knows what their plan is...

[CHT]

I would say no.

Red Bull seemed to have the most consistently fast times.

Ferrari and Lotus were there or thereabouts.

Merc were nowhere near the speed or consistency of the other teams.

But as always we don't really know what is truly happening in the garage or out on track. Lewis' numerous requests regarding pace were all given a reply of "on target" so who knows what their plan is...

I am guessing that the harder compound tires should not just benefit Merc, but also other team, so could we expect the pecking order to remain pretty much the same?

[Mika1]

[turbof1]

What happened on the sixth lap of Nico? A sudden drop of 0.9 seconds can't be explained by tyre wear.

Based on that comparison, I'd say Mercedes is doing pretty well. Very consistent times verses Vettel's, who does start faster but is loosing tyre performance lap after lap. Nico looks like to be driving towards a target time, so more performance might be there.

[SamH123]

That image seems to have doctored the data (to make the Merc look good)

They both went out on the used mediums that they did their quali sims on and the laps were:


Vettel Rosberg
15 lap 1:30.880 (Rosberg)
16 16 lap 1:29.593 16 lap 1:30.907
17 17 lap 1:29.685 17 lap 1:31.117
18 18 lap 1:29.946 18 lap 1:31.434
19 19 lap 1:38.087 19 lap 1:31.965
20 20 lap 1:30.490 20 lap 1:32.368
21 21 lap 1:30.534 21 lap 1:32.173
22 22 lap 1:30.959 22 lap 1:32.150
23 23 lap 1:31.243 23 lap 1:32.146
24 24 lap 1:31.338 24 lap 1:32.399
25 25 lap 1:31.742 25 lap 1:32.813
26 lap 1:33.097 (Rosberg)

Then Rosberg did a stint on the hards and that's where they got his lap times from for that image.

http://en.mclarenf-1.com/index.php?page ... Y0j2UokyOM

[cooken]

Based on that data Vettel actually lost more time (16-25):
Vettel - 2.149s
Rosberg - 1.906s

I wasn't looking at timings at all just watching casually and it did seem like the Merc was consistently slower in terms of overall pace during the long runs. That indicates to me that they are running heavier, which would make sense if they are honing in on tyre use.


Anyone else hoping that McLaren slaps on a mountain of FW elements just to shut Gary Anderson up?

[Dyanxx]

If you look at the times for both Mercedes drivers in FP2, they were clearly running with more fuel than the others.

Hamilton's engineer seemed to think he was on target.

[stefan_]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P08XbXrQXzU[/youtube]

I didn't bashed Pirelli even when it was obvious that the tyres were were influencing the behaviour of cars/drivers more than it should, but this 2nd failure starts to worry me. A tyre failure like this can take away a victory or a championship, and it starts to worry me that two different cars had the same type of tyre failure.

[beelsebob]

I didn't bashed Pirelli even when it was obvious that the tyres were were influencing the behaviour of cars/drivers more than it should, but this 2nd failure starts to worry me. A tyre failure like this can take away a victory or a championship, and it starts to worry me that two different cars had the same type of tyre failure.

Yep, tyres that wear out in weird ways – fine. Tyres that fail at complete random – not fine at all.

[Steven]

Chatting here: http://www.f1technical.net/pr/livechat.php

[Forza]

Saturday Practice 3 - Live Timing

[korzeniow]

Lotus look mighty strong =D>