2015 Pre-season Testing

[ismail1991]

Very inefficient day for Mercedes, They didn't go out much today. I don't know why Wherlein didn't go out for last thirty minutes

[santos]

Why some people are always trying to find a justification for Ferrari to be quick? Or it's because it have low fuel, or it's cold, or it's hot, or it's because the others are not pushing hard... The fastest lap from Kimi today is 2 sec faster then last year in quali. Maybe, but just maybe the Ferrari it is indeed faster then last year.

Of course Ferrari are faster than last year. They haven't sat all winter doing nothing. People aren't saying that, they're just saying it's unrealistic to judge testing. They're referring to the pace relative to the other teams. Just look at last year, Mercedes never finished top in any of the sessions. There's clearly more to come from them.

That's not true...

Bahrain test 1 recap – February 19-22:

Combined times from all four-days:
1. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1.33.283 (174 laps)
2. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1.34.263 (141 laps)
3. Kevin Magnussen, McLaren, 1.34.910 (127 laps)
4. Jenson Button, McLaren, 1.34.957 (169 laps)
5. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1.36.445 (137 laps)
6. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, 1.36.516 (160 laps)
7. Kimi Räikkönen, Ferrari, 1.36.718 (125 laps)

[ismail1991]

Very inefficient day for Mercedes, They didn't go out much today. I don't know why Wherlein didn't go out for last thirty minutes

It appears that a fuel pump issue disturbed Mercedes' programme

[Ghost_Ring]

Regarding the time progress:

FI with 2014 car is 1 sec faster than last year qualifying.
I assume Perez was running medium.

So we should see some 1.22 during this test

[Aesto]

Testing times at Barcelona are always very competitive and sometimes even faster than the fastest actual qualifying lap that year.

Q3:
2010: 1:19.995 (Webber)
2011: 1:20.981 (Webber)
2012: 1:21.707 (Hamilton (DSQ))
2013: 1:20.718 (Rosberg)
2014: 1:25.232 (Hamilton)

Pre-season testing:
2010: 1:20.472 (Hamilton)
2011: 1’21.268 (Schumacher)
2012: 1:22.030 (Raikkonen)
2013: 1:20.130 (Rosberg)
2014: no test at Barcelona

Rosberg's best 2013 testing time was half a second faster than his pole lap, Schumacher and Raikkonen in 2011 and 2012 were very close, so it stands to reason that a McLaren or Red Bull would have been faster than the pole time.

As this year's cars are clearly faster than last year's, Raikkonen beating last year's pole lap should be no surprise at all.

[Chene_Mostert]

Testing times at Barcelona are always very competitive and sometimes even faster than the fastest actual qualifying lap that year.

Q3:
2010: 1:19.995 (Webber)
2011: 1:20.981 (Webber)
2012: 1:21.707 (Hamilton (DSQ))
2013: 1:20.718 (Rosberg)
2014: 1:25.232 (Hamilton)

Pre-season testing:
2010: 1:20.472 (Hamilton)
2011: 1’21.268 (Schumacher)
2012: 1:22.030 (Raikkonen)
2013: 1:20.130 (Rosberg)
2014: no test at Barcelona

Rosberg's best 2013 testing time was half a second faster than his pole lap, Schumacher and Raikkonen in 2011 and 2012 were very close, so it stands to reason that a McLaren or Red Bull would have been faster than the pole time.

As this year's cars are clearly faster than last year's, Raikkonen beating last year's pole lap should be no surprise at all.

So after all of this, would you say Ferrari made progress?

[Jordan44]

Why some people are always trying to find a justification for Ferrari to be quick? Or it's because it have low fuel, or it's cold, or it's hot, or it's because the others are not pushing hard... The fastest lap from Kimi today is 2 sec faster then last year in quali. Maybe, but just maybe the Ferrari it is indeed faster then last year.

Of course Ferrari are faster than last year. They haven't sat all winter doing nothing. People aren't saying that, they're just saying it's unrealistic to judge testing. They're referring to the pace relative to the other teams. Just look at last year, Mercedes never finished top in any of the sessions. There's clearly more to come from them.

That's not true...

Bahrain test 1 recap – February 19-22:

Combined times from all four-days:
1. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1.33.283 (174 laps)
2. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1.34.263 (141 laps)
3. Kevin Magnussen, McLaren, 1.34.910 (127 laps)
4. Jenson Button, McLaren, 1.34.957 (169 laps)
5. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1.36.445 (137 laps)
6. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, 1.36.516 (160 laps)
7. Kimi Räikkönen, Ferrari, 1.36.718 (125 laps)

I was only thinking of Jerez, I'll change my point. McLaren were not the third quickest team and were not 7 tenths away from Mercedes. You cannot conclude anyone's true pace.

Of course it could be possible but it's very optimistic to assume Ferrari are the quickest team at this point. Especially when it appears all Mercedes have done is long runs.

[PlatinumZealot]

Cars are still 5 seconds slower though...

[FW17]

So after all of this, would you say Ferrari made progress?

Made progress if they can do those laptimes on 2 fliers. Jeraz they were doing the fast laps on every alternate lap suggesting they needed a lap to charge the ERS

[Morteza]

https://twitter.com/GPUpdate/status/568436221178978305

[Chene_Mostert]

So after all of this, would you say Ferrari made progress?

Made progress if they can do those laptimes on 2 fliers. Jeraz they were doing the fast laps on every alternate lap suggesting they needed a lap to charge the ERS

Or they give the tyres a breather, quite a common practice with most teams.
They had ERS charge problems last year, don't you think they have identified it and rectified? Or have they somehow managed overlooked this very important deficit?

[kptaylor]

Does anyone think that the Mercedes drivers "illnesses" today were a ploy to get the FI drivers some track time? Be ill and get Wehrlein back into the Merc, freeing up seat time for Sergio/Hulk?

[Chene_Mostert]

Does anyone think that the Mercedes drivers "illnesses" today were a ploy to get the FI drivers some track time? Be ill and get Wehrlein back into the Merc, freeing up seat time for Sergio/Hulk?

Why go through all the effort? Is there always an ulterior motive in the eyes of F1tech users?

[FW17]

So after all of this, would you say Ferrari made progress?

Made progress if they can do those laptimes on 2 fliers. Jeraz they were doing the fast laps on every alternate lap suggesting they needed a lap to charge the ERS

Or they give the tyres a breather, quite a common practice with most teams.
They had ERS charge problems last year, don't you think they have identified it and rectified? Or have they somehow managed overlooked this very important deficit?

It was not a problem to charge the ERS but to get enough energy from ERS-H to drive the ERS-K continuously; Ferrari depended on energy stored in the battery which was charged to full on ever alternate laps

[giantfan10]

So after all of this, would you say Ferrari made progress?

Made progress if they can do those laptimes on 2 fliers. Jeraz they were doing the fast laps on every alternate lap suggesting they needed a lap to charge the ERS

Or they give the tyres a breather, quite a common practice with most teams.
They had ERS charge problems last year, don't you think they have identified it and rectified? Or have they somehow managed overlooked this very important deficit?

you should have paid attention to the screen name of the poster of this original comment... i think thats the team and fan base thats the most worried about Ferrari getting their 2015 car right.....IMHO if Ferrari and Red bull get their ERS and PU on a decent level Williams will be right back into the midfield fighting for 6th and 7th.
what baffles me the most about some fans perspective is that the obvious mercedes PU dominance has suddenly bled over into being a conversation about how great the williams and mercedes aerodynamics are. just saying a brick with a twin turbo v8 will beat a car with perfect aerodynamics and a 1 litre 4 banger.....just food for thought : )
then we have the other point of view that everyone at ferrari is clueless and only genuises reside in the mercedes camp....pretty interesting how being the only team in the field that got their PU right in a year with new rules has suddenly elevated mercedes to this untouchable entity in formula one