F1 2016 pre-season testing

[Sevach]

With a "testing season" so short makes me wonder why teams still keep their final aero packages under wrap for the final test (just one week later).
It's been the standard behaviour for a while, introduce your car with last years FW and other stuff, and at the final test bring the real thing.

Under these rules there's nobody hiding "blown diffusers" (meaning a total game changer that is clearly visble from the outside).

Mercedes has it right imo, bringing the new parts slowly without much concern of hiding them, not wasting time doing setup work on an outdated package.

[Facts Only]

The problem Sevach is that if you test too many things at once you cant tell what you are actually testing. There are too many variable to know what's causing a change to the car.

With all of the modern telemetary this isn't so much of problem purely on the data side but when it comes to driver feedback if you have a 200 new parts on the car and it doesn't "feel right" its hard to tell whats causing the problem. If you start with a baseline and feed new parts in a few at a time you can get a driver reading on each one.

I wouldn't call running last years Front wing "wasting time on an outdated package" its more "creating a baseline to improve on"

Also remember that the drivers haven't been in the cars for 3 months, having something vaguely familiar to start with will help with acclimatisation and correlation.

[godlameroso]

First week is system checks, correlation work, establishing a baseline to judge further upgrades with things they know work. Then the following week they start chasing performance. Mercedes is so reliable that they're either holding back, or they don't introduce any radical power unit changes. Sauber has also had very good reliability, but that's because everything on there is not new, but rather old stuff. All the teams with brand new radical cars are having teething issues, everyone that uses things that are familiar and understood has had great reliability.

[namao]

Any news about the filming day?

[Lucky]

Any news about the filming day?

https://twitter.com/JensonButton/status ... 8038939649

[ME4ME]

About the PU, they already said last year that the Monza spec combined with new fuel from Petronas would be used as a baseline for the 2016 unit. They probably haven't made any architectural changes to the unit over the winter, just minor improvements which all add up to a reasonably big one, without any drawbacks or uncertainty. I'd imagine the current test specification is the one which will be homologated. They'll probably have plenty of tokens left for in-season use. Point is, there is no reason for radical changes. Continues progress is the way to go.

[Andres125sx]

wrong thread, sorry

[Sevach]

The problem Sevach is that if you test too many things at once you cant tell what you are actually testing. There are too many variable to know what's causing a change to the car.

With all of the modern telemetary this isn't so much of problem purely on the data side but when it comes to driver feedback if you have a 200 new parts on the car and it doesn't "feel right" its hard to tell whats causing the problem. If you start with a baseline and feed new parts in a few at a time you can get a driver reading on each one.

I wouldn't call running last years Front wing "wasting time on an outdated package" its more "creating a baseline to improve on"

Also remember that the drivers haven't been in the cars for 3 months, having something vaguely familiar to start with will help with acclimatisation and correlation.

You missed the part where i talked about bringing the new parts one by one, Mercedes brought it's car in mostly 2015 "clothes" then they brought their new bargeboard, tested it, and brought the nose after that.

Everyone else will have to test their new stuff on a shorter time span, it makes no sense to me, it's like they didn't adequate their timing to this years schedule.

[dren]

Mercedes is cramming two days worth of testing into one. They are able to do it because of their excellent reliability. I don't know if other teams will try in the following years or not.

[strad]

thanks Dot

[giantfan10]

Mercedes is cramming two days worth of testing into one. They are able to do it because of their excellent reliability. I don't know if other teams will try in the following years or not.

Mercedes has excellent reliability because not much changed with their Pu from last year.They also happened to top testing miles last year and their PU was still less reliable than the Ferrari PU.
In 2011 Ferrari topped testing miles....you know what that gave them? exstensive knowledge about their car and third in the constuctor championships. Jump forward to 2016 Mercedes leads testing miles and somehow in some peoples minds that translates to an increased gap to their nearest competitors.
Per ted's notebook at the end of this test the concensus amongst F1 engineers of opposing teams is that the gap between Mercedes and Ferrari is 3 tenths in Qualifying and 2 tenths in race trim, keeping in mind that Mercedes is running a new front wing and new barge boards while Ferrari is using 2015 wings .
I cant wait for Australia to see real racing instead of wild guesses and speculation

[Moose]

Mercedes is cramming two days worth of testing into one. They are able to do it because of their excellent reliability. I don't know if other teams will try in the following years or not.

Mercedes has excellent reliability because not much changed with their Pu from last year.They also happened to top testing miles last year and their PU was still less reliable than the Ferrari PU.
In 2011 Ferrari topped testing miles....you know what that gave them? exstensive knowledge about their car and third in the constuctor championships. Jump forward to 2016 Mercedes leads testing miles and somehow in some peoples minds that translates to an increased gap to their nearest competitors.
Per ted's notebook at the end of this test the concensus amongst F1 engineers of opposing teams is that the gap between Mercedes and Ferrari is 3 tenths in Qualifying and 2 tenths in race trim, keeping in mind that Mercedes is running a new front wing and new barge boards while Ferrari is using 2015 wings .
I cant wait for Australia to see real racing instead of wild guesses and speculation

No one has yet seen a Mercedes do a single qualifying like lap. They've also not seen them even vaguely try to push the car for a race like lap. Trying to tell anything about their performance at this point is ridiculous.

The one thing you're right about - bring on Australia!

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Mercedes has excellent reliability because not much changed with their Pu from last year.......

Mercedes: "No stopping" our engine gains for 2016

"It is a bit like gold mining, you work bloody hard, you get lots of dust and now and again, you get a nice big nugget that makes you smile. And we still find those nuggets…."

Analysis: Why Mercedes doesn't believe in Honda's size zero concept

Mercedes believes its power unit was delivering more than 45 percent thermal efficiency last year – and a graph shown to journalists suggested that the step being prepared for 2016 could be as big a leap forward as the team made between 2014 and 2015.

Cowell would not elaborate on the specific data to confirm that is the size of jump expected, but did hint that big chunks of power were still being unlocked.

When asked if it was logical that as efficiency improved, the turbine got bigger, Cowell said: "Yeah. Two areas are going to improve, the efficiency of the ICE is going to go up and up and up every year, and the efficiency of that turbo is going to go up.

"That means the turbine sizing number is going to go up as long as it is not stealing from the engine."

In Mercedes' case, Cowell confirmed that its turbine had got bigger year on year – helping deliver more power.

Had that compressor and turbine size been restricted to the inside of the engine, like the Honda is, then the scope for making it larger is not there – as it will no longer deliver the advantages that size zero supposedly brings along.

It is clear that Mercedes' vision of what's needed in F1 and what Honda believes is right are very different.

They also happened to top testing miles last year and their PU was still less reliable than the Ferrari PU.

Mercedes' only PU failure came in Monza, where Nico was driving a PU that was doing sixth race. None of Ferrari's PUs did more than 4 races. The failure that Lewis suffered in Singapore, wasn't a PU failure but a clamp that broke inside.

In 2011 Ferrari topped testing miles....you know what that gave them? exstensive knowledge about their car and third in the constuctor championships. Jump forward to 2016 Mercedes leads testing miles and somehow in some peoples minds that translates to an increased gap to their nearest competitors.

Mercedes lead the testing mileage in 2014 and in 2015 and dominated both the years. To see the trend continue, at least in Testing, makes for a similar picture to continue for the season. That's is all it is at this point of time.

Per ted's notebook at the end of this test the concensus amongst F1 engineers of opposing teams is that the gap between Mercedes and Ferrari is 3 tenths in Qualifying and 2 tenths in race trim, keeping in mind that Mercedes is running a new front wing and new barge boards while Ferrari is using 2015 wings .
I cant wait for Australia to see real racing instead of wild guesses and speculation

BARCELONA FORMULA 1 TEST ONE REACTION: WHAT WE AND THE TEAMS HAVE LEARNED SO FAR

Mercedes recorded the second fastest VMax speed during Wednesday’s running at 337.5kph. The car was running plenty of rear wing, so clearly the engine is strong, especially as it probably wasn’t turned up at this stage with reliability testing the name of the game.

Mercedes ended the last season with a handsome 8 tenths lead in qualifying. It was never really clear about how much was the advantage in Race as Mercedes mostly managed the races by going ahead in qualifying. They started baseline work for 2016 PU from Monza itself. They mostly used last few races to test a number of 2016 development items.
You look at Andy Cowell's interviews and you will see a great deal of optimism about the new PU. They came to the winter testing, keeping very high targets of mileage to achieve and they have done so in first test. They didn't even bothered about ordering soft, supersoft or ultrasoft tyres for testing. They are optimizing every possible area of the chassis and aren't shying away from adding aerodynamic variations. Doesn't that speaks volumes about where they have positioned themselves?

Ever since 2013, they bring parts to the car and it stays on the car. Such has been the efficiency of the developments. Following is the statement from Lewis on the new Front Wing that they brought in the first test.
Lewis Hamilton thought Mercedes F1 testing plan was 'crazy'

For now, a new front wing tested on Friday appears to be paying dividends.

"The front wing is an improvement, which is good," he said.

There isn't another team so far in the recent times, which has maintained such a phenomenal record. For a moment Imagine if these achievements were from Ferrari, would have believed anyone could have beaten Ferrari? I wouldn't be surprised if Mercedes have actually moved away from Ferrari.

[f1316]

Mercedes ended the last season with a handsome 8 tenths lead in qualifying.

Most pundits put this at around 0.6 to be fair. It was just under 0.6s in Brazil, and if you're looking at Abu Dhabi then you have to factor in Vettel's lack of participation (Kimi, the slower Ferrari driver, was only 0.4s behind the slower Mercedes that day).

It's still a big gap but the teams seem to think they have an idea where they stand already (see Rosberg's comments). If the BBC source is to be believed therefore, Ferrari think they've narrowed but not eradicated that gap, which could at least make it interesting.

[Phil]

Mercedes has excellent reliability because not much changed with their Pu from last year.They also happened to top testing miles last year and their PU was still less reliable than the Ferrari PU.

The scary thing to me watching Mercedes complete their testing mileage is that they are seemingly on top of things and very confident. Seemingly in control too over their testing too.

I.e. If their testing was riddled with problems, I'd be guessing that they have changed too many parts or pushed too hard in certain areas leading to the problems they're experiencing. That would be less ideal and it would show.

This isn't the case. They are breezing through testing with impressive stint times and the team also seems very confident and reliability looks to be as impressive as it has been in 2014 and 2015, despite having the already strongest package. They had a fantastic baseline in both previous years and this looks like an evolution of it. No ugly surprises so far.

Perhaps this breezing through testing is a result of being too conservative, but looking at the various bits on the car and how we are seeing things that look to be improvements to an already great package, I'm more of the opinion they are very much on top of things.

It's all no guarantee, Australia will show where the teams are at relatively to each other, but at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Mercedes somehow kept their gap to the next-best similar to what it was in 2015. The only thing that might shuffle the order is the pace on tires - as tires are IMO a very very crucial part of how much performance translates to lap-time. We saw in 2015 how much of a difference this can make, or in 2012 when we had the lottery tires most teams didn't understand. But again, Mercedes is raking up a lot of mileage which is probably helping them understand that part well (even if they have been focusing on the medium tire so far).