****Winter Testing #1 Jerez****
Discussion
I agree with the sage observations about 'testing is testing', but you can't escape the feeling that McLaren are suffering here, and given all of the PR and chest-pounding that comes out of Woking, at some point the reality of 'superior engineering' should become more tangible. I agree that they know more about building an F1 car than I do, but I do understand that they can't develop parts, test for endurance, make things faster and more reliable if they aren't on the track actually testing.
These sorts of appearances, whether engineering necessity or otherwise, don't exactly stoke the passions of would-be sponsors, either.
I'd like them to get things right, but it has been a bit since they were 'right' in the way Ron Dennis thinks 'right' should be.
These sorts of appearances, whether engineering necessity or otherwise, don't exactly stoke the passions of would-be sponsors, either.
I'd like them to get things right, but it has been a bit since they were 'right' in the way Ron Dennis thinks 'right' should be.
Edited by dafeller on Wednesday 4th February 11:31
From here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/formula1/31058834
11:57
McLaren's Jenson Button is seventh fastest, 5.772 seconds off the pace but the team are making progress - albeit very, very slowly.
11:56
F1 journalist Dan Knutson in Jerez: "Whatever problem stopped Button exiting the garage a little while ago, it was quickly solved. He returned to the track shortly afterwards and has just set the team's fastest time of the test."
11:57
McLaren's Jenson Button is seventh fastest, 5.772 seconds off the pace but the team are making progress - albeit very, very slowly.
11:56
F1 journalist Dan Knutson in Jerez: "Whatever problem stopped Button exiting the garage a little while ago, it was quickly solved. He returned to the track shortly afterwards and has just set the team's fastest time of the test."
PW said:
Everyone saw the mistake Renault made last year, the bad PR and how much it cost those teams over the season. Why repeat that mistake? Why not get some fundamental mileage done and the niggles out the way before going to an extreme?
What good is the milage if it's not on your extreme package?In something as cut-throat as F1, when the engine regs are locked down after homologation, you need to test your most extreme package to see if it's workable first, not last, and then fall back onto your more conventional solutions if it's obvious it's not fixable. If you did it the other way around you'd be in real trouble when you fit your most extreme config for the last tests and find you can't do any running or setup work and you haven't done development on your other PU bar running around the track, because your upgrades were this one...
I like how everyone is up in arms that Mclaren should have done this, should have done that, but haven't noticed that Red Bull have done barely any laps either...
Edited by PhillipM on Wednesday 4th February 12:22
can everyone STOP getting their panties in a twist about Mclaren on the first test session of the year ffs, this is the first of three with a brand new car, brand new powertrain and brand new head of tech.
if they are having the same issues at the start of test three then i will be first to offer my chagrin, at the moment tho they are having a fairly successful test, TEST. i.e. drive it till it breaks then drive it some more.
To the poster above who thinks they should be on +500 laps by now, deary me. Were talking thousands of completely unique components run in anger for the first time ever in the totally inhospitable environment that is a modern f1 car, to expect them to have completed more than 500 laps so far is to completely misunderstand the complexity of the sport you enjoy.
lets talk about the ferrari engine, lets talk about the ferrari chassis and lets talk about if we think lotus has turned a corner. as all three seem to be vastly improved. The ferrari looks good out of the box so far.
if they are having the same issues at the start of test three then i will be first to offer my chagrin, at the moment tho they are having a fairly successful test, TEST. i.e. drive it till it breaks then drive it some more.
To the poster above who thinks they should be on +500 laps by now, deary me. Were talking thousands of completely unique components run in anger for the first time ever in the totally inhospitable environment that is a modern f1 car, to expect them to have completed more than 500 laps so far is to completely misunderstand the complexity of the sport you enjoy.
lets talk about the ferrari engine, lets talk about the ferrari chassis and lets talk about if we think lotus has turned a corner. as all three seem to be vastly improved. The ferrari looks good out of the box so far.
Edited by Richard-G on Wednesday 4th February 12:22
Richard-G said:
can everyone STOP getting their panties in a twist about Mclaren on the first test session of the year ffs, this is the first of three with a brand new car, brand new powertrain and brand new head of tech.
if they are having the same issues at the start of test three then i will be first to offer my chagrin, at the moment tho they are having a fairly successful test, TEST. i.e. drive it till it breaks then drive it some more.
To the poster above who thinks they should be on +500 laps by now, deary me. Were talking thousands of completely unique components run in anger for the first time ever in the totally inhospitable environment that is a modern f1 car, to expect them to have completed more than 500 laps so far is to completely misunderstand the complexity of the sport you enjoy.
lets talk about the ferrari engine, lets talk about the ferrari chassis and lets talk about if we think lotus has turned a corner. as all three seem to be vastly improved. The ferrari looks good out of the box so far.
This. Mclaren are starting with a blank canvas, I'd imagine just getting something working is a bonus right now. I'd wager there's very little that is from last years car. Get something working, analyse the data, go away and see what comes back for the next test. They're having a better time of it than RBR were last year, which from their point of view has to be a success.if they are having the same issues at the start of test three then i will be first to offer my chagrin, at the moment tho they are having a fairly successful test, TEST. i.e. drive it till it breaks then drive it some more.
To the poster above who thinks they should be on +500 laps by now, deary me. Were talking thousands of completely unique components run in anger for the first time ever in the totally inhospitable environment that is a modern f1 car, to expect them to have completed more than 500 laps so far is to completely misunderstand the complexity of the sport you enjoy.
lets talk about the ferrari engine, lets talk about the ferrari chassis and lets talk about if we think lotus has turned a corner. as all three seem to be vastly improved. The ferrari looks good out of the box so far.
Edited by Richard-G on Wednesday 4th February 12:22
PW said:
dafeller said:
I agree with the sage observations about 'testing is testing', but you can't escape the feeling that McLaren are not suffering here
Testing is testing. Sitting immobile in the garage for 4 days is not testing.The other teams have a season of racing under their belts, and now 850+ laps for Mercedes, 580+ for Ferrari and 410+ for Renault. Honda have 50.
Everyone saw the mistake Renault made last year, the bad PR and how much it cost those teams over the season. Why repeat that mistake? Why not get some fundamental mileage done and the niggles out the way before going to an extreme?
Oh well, it's not my money...
suffolk009 said:
Perhaps the same people who are writing McLaren's whole season off as a result of this test, have extrapolated from the timesheets a season finale showdown battle for the championships between Ferrari, Toro Rosso and Sauber.
no, not really..the point to be made here is that they are still very much doing today what the others were doing day 1 of this test, and this is day 4.
their fastest lap currently is some 6+ sec's off the pace, and their milage count is the lowest too.
it's very hard to learn stuff with a car parked in the pit garage.
Yes, it's a new engine, but hell, they have had 2 years to work on this (more time than the others had at this point last year), they are not due to homologate it yet (so are free to run what they like), and yet it still sounds like a bag-o-nails.
Now, I accept the point that some installation issues you won;t find till you hit the track, but the simple fact it took them 2 days just to get it to run anything like cleanly implies wiring/interference/vibration issues, all stuff that should have been tested to death before they came to Jerez.
I find it staggering that Mclaren with all their resources along with Honda are struggling like this.
Scuffers said:
no, not really..
the point to be made here is that they are still very much doing today what the others were doing day 1 of this test, and this is day 4.
their fastest lap currently is some 6+ sec's off the pace, and their milage count is the lowest too.
it's very hard to learn stuff with a car parked in the pit garage.
Yes, it's a new engine, but hell, they have had 2 years to work on this (more time than the others had at this point last year), they are not due to homologate it yet (so are free to run what they like), and yet it still sounds like a bag-o-nails.
Now, I accept the point that some installation issues you won;t find till you hit the track, but the simple fact it took them 2 days just to get it to run anything like cleanly implies wiring/interference/vibration issues, all stuff that should have been tested to death before they came to Jerez.
I find it staggering that Mclaren with all their resources along with Honda are struggling like this.
They will be learning whilst the car is in the garage, they are learning where any weak spots in the design are which have surfaced whilst using an actual car on an actual race track. Maybe they would be better off learning that it works perfectly and just drive around and around but that was unlikely to happen anyway. They have just spent longer in the garage than they would have liked.the point to be made here is that they are still very much doing today what the others were doing day 1 of this test, and this is day 4.
their fastest lap currently is some 6+ sec's off the pace, and their milage count is the lowest too.
it's very hard to learn stuff with a car parked in the pit garage.
Yes, it's a new engine, but hell, they have had 2 years to work on this (more time than the others had at this point last year), they are not due to homologate it yet (so are free to run what they like), and yet it still sounds like a bag-o-nails.
Now, I accept the point that some installation issues you won;t find till you hit the track, but the simple fact it took them 2 days just to get it to run anything like cleanly implies wiring/interference/vibration issues, all stuff that should have been tested to death before they came to Jerez.
I find it staggering that Mclaren with all their resources along with Honda are struggling like this.
It is even more staggering that with all of the resources they have Red Bull have done so few laps using an engine they had last year and have had a full season of racing in which to understand how the fundamentals work. And only having one front wing - how could they do that?
I'm not serious with the previous paragraph, it is what testing is about. But I was surprised they didn't have a second front wing they could use, even if it wasn't quite optimal. They were cutting it very fine in getting to the test obviously.
Rookie/schoolboy errors at McLaren. And they just got rid of Sam Michaels!
"We have had a number of problems," said McLaren's director of engineering Matt Morris who met with the media earlier today. "We have had some operational issues - all of us working together as a team for the first time - things you take for granted when you have been with an engine supplier for many years.
"You drop the ball sometimes, like saying getting oil levels wrong and all these sorts of things. We have had a few issues like that. We have also had some minor electrical issues, which resulted in a lot of downtime but have actually been relatively easy to fix.
"The main thing is that we have not been burning bodywork or blowing up engines. I am pretty happy that we are going to come out of this test with no sorts of major issues to resolve."
"We have had a number of problems," said McLaren's director of engineering Matt Morris who met with the media earlier today. "We have had some operational issues - all of us working together as a team for the first time - things you take for granted when you have been with an engine supplier for many years.
"You drop the ball sometimes, like saying getting oil levels wrong and all these sorts of things. We have had a few issues like that. We have also had some minor electrical issues, which resulted in a lot of downtime but have actually been relatively easy to fix.
"The main thing is that we have not been burning bodywork or blowing up engines. I am pretty happy that we are going to come out of this test with no sorts of major issues to resolve."
I'm amazed that so many people are so off the mark on this one.
None of the teams are running the 'same engines' as they ran last year.
Honda have not had 'two years' to develop and test their engine.
They aren't even 'engines', this is a popular misnomer. They're 'power units', and there's much much more to them than just an engine.
All the test bed development in the world will not guarantee that it's all going to work in the real world.
No-one gives a stuff about the PR implications as vanishingly few people pay any attention.
None of the teams are running the 'same engines' as they ran last year.
Honda have not had 'two years' to develop and test their engine.
They aren't even 'engines', this is a popular misnomer. They're 'power units', and there's much much more to them than just an engine.
All the test bed development in the world will not guarantee that it's all going to work in the real world.
No-one gives a stuff about the PR implications as vanishingly few people pay any attention.
BritishRacinGrin said:
Honda have not had 'two years' to develop and test their engine.
really?first floated back in 2011, formally announced in 2013, or are you suggesting they sat on their hands for another year before they started work?
BritishRacinGrin said:
They aren't even 'engines', this is a popular misnomer. They're 'power units', and there's much much more to them than just an engine.
I think we all know that, yes, we should be taking powertrains not engines.BritishRacinGrin said:
All the test bed development in the world will not guarantee that it's all going to work in the real world.
yes, no question, however, when you read about the issues they are having, it really is stuff they should have sorted well before turning up here.
ks" ?The other manufacturers had engines running during winter 13/14 and have had a year to develop them in their cars in the crucible of motorsport.
Red bull were taking an angle grinder to bodywork on Sunday and have blown an engine up already. Torro Rosso have blown one too I think? Mercedes have had failures.
Okay they've had some procedural errors etc like today's oil level anomaly but with the amount of data Honda and McLaren see it's hardly surprising that they come up every once in a while.
Red bull were taking an angle grinder to bodywork on Sunday and have blown an engine up already. Torro Rosso have blown one too I think? Mercedes have had failures.
Okay they've had some procedural errors etc like today's oil level anomaly but with the amount of data Honda and McLaren see it's hardly surprising that they come up every once in a while.
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