Gary Anderson predicts F1's pecking order

[Anon123]

This guy has a poor history at calling the pecking order !

I don't think the time gaps will look anything like this after the 3rd test, most teams have been working on reliability, now's the time for them to see just what there cars can do.

I think he was somewhere near last year, he said Red Bull were just ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari with Lotus having good race pace and he was unsure over Mclaren.

[Maelstrom]

This guy has a poor history at calling the pecking order !

I don't think the time gaps will look anything like this after the 3rd test, most teams have been working on reliability, now's the time for them to see just what there cars can do.

I think he was somewhere near last year, he said Red Bull were just ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari with Lotus having good race pace and he was unsure over Mclaren.

Except the fact that Red Bull wasn't just ahead... but miles ahead.

[beelsebob]

This guy has a poor history at calling the pecking order !

I don't think the time gaps will look anything like this after the 3rd test, most teams have been working on reliability, now's the time for them to see just what there cars can do.

I think he was somewhere near last year, he said Red Bull were just ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari with Lotus having good race pace and he was unsure over Mclaren.

Except the fact that Red Bull wasn't just ahead... but miles ahead.

No, they were only just ahead, hence why Mercedes won several races in the early season. It was only late in the year that Red Bull had a clearly dominant car.

[timbo]

I think he was somewhere near last year, he said Red Bull were just ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari with Lotus having good race pace and he was unsure over Mclaren.

It was safest bet.
This year it's completely different.

[JimClarkFan]

This guy has a poor history at calling the pecking order !

I don't think the time gaps will look anything like this after the 3rd test, most teams have been working on reliability, now's the time for them to see just what there cars can do.

I think he was somewhere near last year, he said Red Bull were just ahead of Mercedes and Ferrari with Lotus having good race pace and he was unsure over Mclaren.

Except the fact that Red Bull wasn't just ahead... but miles ahead.

You have a short memory, red bull weren't dominant at the start of the season, anything but in fact, lots of that was due to the tyres of course.

[CHT]

F1 development is moving so fast, the most one could predict is the pecking order at Melbourne.

[autogyro]

F1 development is moving so fast, the most one could predict is the pecking order at Melbourne.

Massa and not just because of his last fastest testing lap.

[scuderiafan]

There's going to be no point trying to figure out who's where in terms of performance right now. In my mind, Australia is going to be a lottery, and we won't get a good idea of the pecking order until after the first few flyaway races.

[myurr]

There's going to be no point trying to figure out who's where in terms of performance right now. In my mind, Australia is going to be a lottery, and we won't get a good idea of the pecking order until after the first few flyaway races.

A lottery suggests that the teams have no influence on the outcome, and that is not true. Other than the usual caveat around racing incidents the best prepared team who have done the best job will be the team that wins. If by lottery you mean it's difficult to call and you don't know who is likely to head the pack, then that's not really a lottery.

[willmesquita]

Trying for trying, my pecking order - so far - is (IMHO):

Mercedes - (Williams / McLaren) by 0,6s - Ferrari by 0,9s - Force India by 1,0 s

Based on raw times (adjusted by diff in performance of tyres and some "sandbaggin' factor").

[WhiteBlue]

My prediction is a shameless plagiat from betfair odds in terms of season results.

Hamilton 3.6
Vettel 4.2
Rosberg 7.2
Alonso 7.8
Reikkonen 12,5
Button 13,5
Magnussen 25
Massa 44
Ricciardo 46
Bottas 75
Grosjean 80

Merc 2
Ferrari 4,9
Red Bull 5,6
McLaren 10,5
Williams 21

When we look at season start form I think the pecking order is:

Merc
Williams
Ferrari
McLaren
Force India
Red Bull
Lotus
Sauber
Toro Rosso
Caterham
Marussia

[Montyinct]

Gary Anderson ( Autosport ) says that Williams is actually ahead of Mercedes! I am surprised, of course at the end of the day it's just a guess based on numbers crunching.

[dren]

Gary Anderson ( Autosport ) says that Williams is actually ahead of Mercedes! I am surprised, of course at the end of the day it's just a guess based on numbers crunching.

Gary Anderson has historically been god awful at predictions. Williams is in a good spot for sure but it is hard to believe they are in front of Mercedes or even Ferrari.

[Shakeman]

Gary Anderson ( Autosport ) says that Williams is actually ahead of Mercedes! I am surprised, of course at the end of the day it's just a guess based on numbers crunching.

Gary Anderson has historically been god awful at predictions. Williams is in a good spot for sure but it is hard to believe they are in front of Mercedes or even Ferrari.

It depends which parameter you are comparing, Williams are way ahead of anyone on distance per red flag. They appear to be very reliable which at this stage could easily be interpreted as being out in front.

[TBone]

Just curious to know if anyone heard anything about Williams being ahead of Mercedes according to Gary Anderson. Possible of course, but i don't think it will be the case.

I really can't see that, we'd have to assume that Mercedes has been working on the car much longer, the PU is made specifically for their car and it wasn't that long ago that Williams were miles off the pace with their 2013 car.

I've read GA's article and while admittedly I know very little about these things it is full of some of the most arbitrary assumptions I can think of:

"It's never easy to really understand where any driver or team sits at the end of testing as there are so many variables that can influence the lap time.
Ten kilograms difference in fuel load costs approximately 0.33 seconds per lap, but for this comparison we will just assume that the fuel loads were not too far apart.
Will Alonso be the man to beat in Australia? © XPB
So what will we see in Melbourne? I don't have a crystal ball (I wish I did) but using both historical data and laptimes from the final test, I've had a closer look.
To achieve this, I have equalised the different tyre compounds at 0.4s per compound. My base line is the soft tyre, so if a medium tyre was used to set the best time I would take 0.4 seconds off. If a super-soft was used, I would add on 0.4 seconds.If used tyres were on the car for the fastest lap time I have taken away 0.2 seconds. I haven't just picked these offsets out of mid-air; they come from more or less the average from the 2013 season.
Also, everyone seems to be saying that the circuit is slower at this test than it was at the previous test. Some team personnel at the test have said the difference was up to two seconds at times, but I think that's far too much.
Looking closely, the track seemed to get faster towards the end of the four days of running. To get a mathematically accurate figure, I have used Nico Rosberg's fastest time from the previous week's Bahrain test compared with the recent one and modified it to equalise for tyres. That puts him 0.621s slower on the third day of the final test.
To be as fair as possible across the board, the laptimes of anyone who set a time on the Thursday or Friday, when the track was slowest, has had their time made quicker by one second. For Saturday, 0.5s has been taken off, while for Sunday there is no offset.
FASTEST ADJUSTED TIMES IN BAHRAIN

Driver Adjusted time
Massa 1m33.158s
Rosberg 1m33.283s
Hamilton 1m33.678s
Bottas 1m33.987s
Perez 1m34.290s
Alonso 1m34.680s
Riccardo 1m34.743s
Button 1m34.957s
Magnussen 1m35.310s
Raikkonen 1m35.326s
Hulkenberg 1m35.977s
Kvyat 1m36.013s
Vergne 1m36.101s
Chilton 1m36.835s
Sutil 1m36.867s
Bianchi 1m36.987s
Gutierrez 1m37.180s
Vettel 1m37.268s
Ericsson 1m37.983s
Kobayashi 1m38.391s
Maldonado 1m38.707s
Grosjean 1m39.302s"

HAM's time is therefore noticably slower than Massa's even though we knew he had time in the bag owing to aborted laps, etc so what is the point in trying to be scientific about it? Even then he goes on to say that Mercedes 'has done better than anyone else' but the VJM07 is 'one of the only cars to be able to improve its lap time on its second timed lap, so it looks after the tyres very well' without pointing to anything specific.

Obvious point is that we won't know who is fastest until the end of the race in Oz (ie, by then we know if Merc have one lap-pace and race pace to boot).