Formula 1 Pre-season Testing February 2020

[Blib]

Chase Carey just said caronavirus a fluid situation but at this point he expects to go to the first three GPs.

He refused to be drawn on any long term speculation.

[StevieBee]

Managed to get over yesterday. Not seen F1 cars in action for 13 years and the hairs on the neck still stand up when you see things full chat. For all the arguments over what they sound like, look like and Lewis's latest tattoo.... F1 is still just utterly brilliant.

Anyway, got a memory card of photos to sort though but thought I'd share a few here:









And, I'm not certain but I think McLaren need to dial in a little more front wing....

[url]

[JonChalk]

Anyone got more of the backstory to this:

https://twitter.com/SportmphMark/status/1233463487...

Last year's PU? Carried over to this year?

[Deesee]

JonChalk said:

Anyone got more of the backstory to this:

https://twitter.com/SportmphMark/status/1233463487...

Last year's PU? Carried over to this year?

What do you need to know?

[carinaman]

Supersam83 said:

Jolyon Palmer said:

"Charles Leclerc is doing a really really long run at the moment, and he's blowing the rest of the midfield out of the water to the tune of around a second a lap and that's even Racing Point, who people are saying they are in a fight with"

"Actually the lap times Leclerc is doing, are actually bang on what Lewis Hamilton did on his long run yesterday."

"Whatever happened to Mercedes last week, they are not as quick this week, but Ferrari right now are on par with Mercedes right now."

Interesting view from Jolyon Palmer on sky sports website...

Missed Apex podcast mentioned Palmer's punditry skills and how he hard he worked and how he worked on strategy as a driver.

[Sandpit Steve]

JonChalk said:

Anyone got more of the backstory to this:

https://twitter.com/SportmphMark/status/1233463487...

Last year's PU? Carried over to this year?

I assume that this years engine is different enough that the FIA can let it go.

Didn’t they allegedly find a way to accumulate fuel on the engine side of the fuel flow restrictor? From memory, the FIA were aware of what the engine looked like and had given the team the okay, but the paddock policemen didn’t really understand what it was doing, otherwise they’d have banned it.

[Stan the Bat]

Reminds me of John Rhodes in his mini days.

[ajprice]

Ferrari state that their legal car for this year isn't as fast as last year's not legal car . Being (probably) legal isn't the only problem though, the new car also has more drag, and making the engine more reliable has made it less powerful.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ferrari-2020-en...

[anonymous-user]

Same as last year from Austin onwards. Oh no, we haven't turned the engine down, we've turned the aero up. Yep, course you did petal.

[thegreenhell]

Some lap time analysis from Mark Hughes, using the filters and analysis described in the linked article, to give the following relative pace of all the cars from testing:

Mercedes	1min 15.3sec
Ferrari	1min 15.4sec
Red Bull	1min 15.5sec
Racing Point	1min 16.1sec
McLaren	1min 16.3sec
Renault	1min 16.3sec
AlphaTauri	1min 16.8sec
Alfa Romeo	1min 16.8sec
Williams	1min 16.8sec
Haas	1min 17.0sec

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single...

[HustleRussell]

thegreenhell said:

Some lap time analysis from Mark Hughes, using the filters and analysis described in the linked article, to give the following relative pace of all the cars from testing:

Mercedes	1min 15.3sec
Ferrari	1min 15.4sec
Red Bull	1min 15.5sec
Racing Point	1min 16.1sec
McLaren	1min 16.3sec
Renault	1min 16.3sec
AlphaTauri	1min 16.8sec
Alfa Romeo	1min 16.8sec
Williams	1min 16.8sec
Haas	1min 17.0sec

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/articles/single...

I find it hard to believe that Williams have halved the pace deficit in one winter

[Munter]

HustleRussell said:

I find it hard to believe that Williams have halved the pace deficit in one winter

Far easier to find time at that end of the time sheet than the other. There's likely to be a couple of big screw ups that once you find them, improve things a lot. I can believe they are now on the back of the pack. I'd have been shocked if anybody suggested mid field. But basically the slowest car by somewhere around 2 seconds a lap from the leaders. I can believe that.

[TheDeuce]

Munter said:

Far easier to find time at that end of the time sheet than the other. There's likely to be a couple of big screw ups that once you find them, improve things a lot. I can believe they are now on the back of the pack. I'd have been shocked if anybody suggested mid field. But basically the slowest car by somewhere around 2 seconds a lap from the leaders. I can believe that.

I think that's exactly the case. They haven't 'developed speed' so much as they have had time to fix what was broken in last years car. And they've potentially been very lucky too - it's looking like HAAS have screwed up their car to the extent that Williams actually have a team to battle with this season. In fairness that's the most depressing battle in F1 history - the battle for last... But still an improvement on last year.

[The Moose]

Anyone else think that Mercedes should have kept their powder dry with the DAS during testing?

[anonymous-user]

I get an impression Mercedes haven't worked out how to make proper use of DAS yet. The drivers aren't raving about it and it might end up being one of those nice in theory ideas that's hard to apply in the real world. Of course, they might have nailed it and are keeping its effectiveness properly under wraps, including the drivers sounding a bit glum about it. Who knows?!

[SpudLink]

TheDeuce said:

Munter said:

Far easier to find time at that end of the time sheet than the other. There's likely to be a couple of big screw ups that once you find them, improve things a lot. I can believe they are now on the back of the pack. I'd have been shocked if anybody suggested mid field. But basically the slowest car by somewhere around 2 seconds a lap from the leaders. I can believe that.

I think that's exactly the case. They haven't 'developed speed' so much as they have had time to fix what was broken in last years car. And they've potentially been very lucky too - it's looking like HAAS have screwed up their car to the extent that Williams actually have a team to battle with this season. In fairness that's the most depressing battle in F1 history - the battle for last... But still an improvement on last year.

I think it was worse a few years ago when the 3 new teams came in. I suppose it was at least a three way fight to be a long way behind the mid field.

[The Moose]

janesmith1950 said:

I get an impression Mercedes haven't worked out how to make proper use of DAS yet. The drivers aren't raving about it and it might end up being one of those nice in theory ideas that's hard to apply in the real world. Of course, they might have nailed it and are keeping its effectiveness properly under wraps, including the drivers sounding a bit glum about it. Who knows?!

Or are they using it to draw attention away from something else?!

[TheDeuce]

janesmith1950 said:

I get an impression Mercedes haven't worked out how to make proper use of DAS yet. The drivers aren't raving about it and it might end up being one of those nice in theory ideas that's hard to apply in the real world. Of course, they might have nailed it and are keeping its effectiveness properly under wraps, including the drivers sounding a bit glum about it. Who knows?!

I think as a performance tool it's probably not a huge deal and as such we can't see it doing anything very impressive. But come race day, if either driver needs to make their tyres last a few more laps to gain an advantage... or they need to switch their tyres on in a hurry, it could perhaps have the power to alter podiums.

So much of the sport these days is about the tyres (love that or hate it..), and DAS should give their drivers the ability to control tyres more than the rest of the field. If it works, that could be very valuable.

[C Lee Farquar]

I guess it won't help the rear tyres much.

[CallMeLegend]

The Moose said:

Anyone else think that Mercedes should have kept their powder dry with the DAS during testing?

No, why turn up at a race with an untested system?