2013 Testing - Barcelona 2: 28 Feb - 3 Mar

[kooleracer]

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/u ... G_1169.jpg

Deffinetly low rear downforce setup - slimer RW and no monkey seat. Should they have an extremly high rear downforce and reduce it by the wing, to balance the car...?

I highly doubt.

W04 is better than W03 because it doesn't have a dated rear end like the latter had. But Mercedes is playing catch up here and all the others are ahead on this development.

Mercedes is definitely making an effort for media laps but my guess right now is last positions of Q3 for them

Sauber was doing lot's of laps on 1.22.5 and their baseline fuel is 100kg. Felipe's did 1.21 low and Ferrari's baseline fuel is 60kg.

Red Bull and Mclaren, to say the least, can most probably lap in the 1.19s

Don't get carried away with the time nor compare it with pole time because cold temperatures increase a lot the downforce making the cars several seconds faster from winter to summer.

W04 have no, at least superficially, thing compromising it's design but it doesn't have anything revolutionary either, it looks merely a top midfield car.

I know people here are deeply passionate as this thread had way more pages than any other. Despite this being a technical forum, Hamilton fans are all over it spreading positivism and wishfull thinking but Lewis himself already confirmed several times that the car clearly lacks in downforce and, despite an improvement, it's still behind

Arthur please take your unfunded comments elsewhere. How you know how much fuel Ferarri and Sauber carry? First people said 1:20 wasn't not possible now its done people say 1.19 is the time you should run. Please tell me why Ferrari would send Massa out on Supersoft for 2-4 laps with 60kg of fuel? Ferrari is just slower just face it. They haven't brought there Melbourne packet, no packet will give you 0.7 a lap. All the pundits that are at the track said the car looked good on track. But "Arthur Craft" knows more then the people on site.....

Ross told Martin that car doesn't look different from the outside but under the hood the car has fundamentally changed. Even the drivers say that the Merc looks great. But "Arthur Craft'' has inside information because he knows what fuel loads Ferrari and Sauber are running.

To be honest i can't take people like yourself serious. Comments: "W04 have no, at least superficially, thing compromising it's design but it doesn't have anything revolutionary either, it looks merely a top midfield car."
Plain ignorance!!!

[RicerDude]

Sauber was doing lot's of laps on 1.22.5 and their baseline fuel is 100kg. Felipe's did 1.21 low and Ferrari's baseline fuel is 60kg.

Where did you find those numbers?

If Sauber were doing 1:22:5s with 100kg of fuel then that would mean they would be doing 1:15s come qualifying. Wow Sauber look good.

[diemaster]

That's an impressive showing from Hamilton. Now, I believe they will be competitive for this year. I think this year will be even more close than the last one Mercedes, Lotus, Mclaren, RB all look very close, but my guess will be

RB > Mercedes = Lotus > Mclaren = Ferrari

mercedes=lotus and mercedes > mclaren

i think RBR>Mclaren>Lotus>Ferrari=Mercedes

McLaren won last two races. Mercedes 1 sec slower than mclaren last year.
you dont forget

[prince]

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/u ... G_1169.jpg

Deffinetly low rear downforce setup - slimer RW and no monkey seat. Should they have an extremly high rear downforce and reduce it by the wing, to balance the car...?

I highly doubt.

W04 is better than W03 because it doesn't have a dated rear end like the latter had. But Mercedes is playing catch up here and all the others are ahead on this development.

Mercedes is definitely making an effort for media laps but my guess right now is last positions of Q3 for them

Sauber was doing lot's of laps on 1.22.5 and their baseline fuel is 100kg. Felipe's did 1.21 low and Ferrari's baseline fuel is 60kg.

Red Bull and Mclaren, to say the least, can most probably lap in the 1.19s

Don't get carried away with the time nor compare it with pole time because cold temperatures increase a lot the downforce making the cars several seconds faster from winter to summer.

W04 have no, at least superficially, thing compromising it's design but it doesn't have anything revolutionary either, it looks merely a top midfield car.

I know people here are deeply passionate as this thread had way more pages than any other. Despite this being a technical forum, Hamilton fans are all over it spreading positivism and wishfull thinking but Lewis himself already confirmed several times that the car clearly lacks in downforce and, despite an improvement, it's still behind

Where the W04 stands in Melbourne is a different question, but I feel like laughing on your comment. When no one knows, including so many experts at the track, how do you know the fuel loads of Sauber and Ferrari? I am guessing you are either Monisha Kaltenborn or Domenicalli in the disguise of "Artur Craft". =D> =D> =D>

[Sombrero]

I stick to Red Bull then Lotus, Mercedes, Ferrari and Mc Laren. Guess who will set the fastest time tomorrow probably under 1'20'' ?

[Artur Craft]

Merc thread had more pages than any other last year as well. Along with Ferrari.

I always thought Mclaren had it because of Lewis, who is a great entertaining driver and, therefore, attracts lot's of fans.

Anyway, Lewis said(on Sky live coverage) the one lap isn't a problem and they(or he) can easily extract a good lap out of it with new tires. Then he said the long runs that are the problem and in which they are working

From what I have seen, W04 degradation doesn't seem much worse(if any) than the average of most other cars, which will be a big improvement from W03.

Solving that problem is expected given Aldo Costa worked on this car, the downforce on might have to wait quite a lot longer still because Lowe(if that is how his name is spelled) will stay, doing donkey work, at Mclaren untill the end of this year.

PS:The only stint(degradation wise) which I saw, so far, that is way better than Mercedes' was Guttierrez's 17 laps stint with a gap of only 1,4s from 1st to last lap

PS: Nico, and everybody else, will obviously do a race sim tomorrow, so there will have the idea so far of the true performance of this, and all the others, car

Sauber was doing lot's of laps on 1.22.5 and their baseline fuel is 100kg. Felipe's did 1.21 low and Ferrari's baseline fuel is 60kg.

Where did you find those numbers?

I can't actually name the people because they could eventually lose their jobs(not likely but possible) but they are/were from inside the teams and know the baseline fuel that the mentioned team's have been using through out the years.

Gary Anderson already mentioned this "baseline fuel" thing. Teams use a fixed value across year in order to have a valid comparison

I can't guarantee Guttierrez's or Massa's laptimes were with the fuel I mentioned but that was just to give an idea of how much we can be talking about here.

My comment was not to bash W04, I'm just bringing an alternative view that the car, just maybe, won't be the pace setter as some will conclude after today

@ RicerDude no, it would mean a laptime around 1.18. They probably weren't using the baseline fuel on those laps, but I can guarantee you they are not 2 seconds behind W04, so there is some serious fuel difference in here

[bhall]

Shame they don't publish weights.

[kooleracer]

Sauber was doing lot's of laps on 1.22.5 and their baseline fuel is 100kg. Felipe's did 1.21 low and Ferrari's baseline fuel is 60kg.

Where did you find those numbers?

If Sauber were doing 1:22:5s with 100kg of fuel then that would mean they would be doing 1:15s come qualifying. Wow Sauber look good.

Could you please reply Mr.Arthur Craft!

[stefan_]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGP2wV5k8qg[/youtube]

[diemaster]

I stick to Red Bull then Lotus, Mercedes, Ferrari and Mc Laren. Guess who will set the fastest time tomorrow probably under 1'20'' ?

i think RBR can do easily but they will sandbag tomorrow

[mclaren_mircea]

It's completely non-sens to think that Massa had much fuel. Ferrari was quite aggresive sending Massa on stints of 5 laps firtsly on soft, and than on super-soft. Their fuel-loads were simillary with the Mercedes.

[MercAMGF1Fans]

BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson says Lewis Hamilton can win the title this year
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula-one/21643049

A 180 from previous comments, Gary Anderson at his absolute best

http://www.mixcloud.com/mercamgf1fans/g ... test-2013/

that's his verdict from Jerez

[NathanOlder]

Roscoe told me Mercedes run 101kg of fuel today. Every time they left the garage. What does Artur Craft think of this ?

[turbof1]

I don't think Mercedes was pushing all the way through. Hamilton also set a 1:20:8 with mediums on a 5 or 7 lap run. That time is also better then Massa's, which did his time on the supersofts. I genuinly think Mercedes has a better car then Ferrari.

[Nando]

I can't actually name the people because they could eventually lose their jobs(not likely but possible) but they are/were from inside the teams and know the baseline fuel that the mentioned team's have been using through out the years.

Gary Anderson already mentioned this "baseline fuel" thing. Teams use a fixed value across year in order to have a valid comparison

I can't guarantee Guttierrez's or Massa's laptimes were with the fuel I mentioned but that was just to give an idea of how much we can be talking about here.

I find it hard to believe teams would be using the same numbers as the year before since so many people move around the paddock eventually everyone would know everyone´s baseline.

Not to mention new regulations, new tires, different weather, different temps makes it quite hard to know for a fact how much quicker your car is then the year before.
Seems like simulator and wind tunnel would give you far better guidelines of the improvements made.