2016 Pre-Season Testing Thread

Pre-Season testing for the F1 2016 season will begin on the 22nd of February, and end on the 4th of March (2 weeks of 4 day tests). With the season opener in Australia beginning on the 20th March.

Furthermore, testing will only take place at the Circuit de Catalunya Barcelona.

Last time out in the pre-season;

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Summary of rule and technical changes - feel free to add;

• Wider choice (flexibility of tyre choices with a new-ultrasoft compound).
  
• Louder cars (changes to exhaust systems).
  
• Increase in PU development tokens/Increase in areas of PU permitted to develop.
• F1 customer engines must be the same specifications (even though STR are using a 2015-spec Ferrari engine). Look out for Marussia using a 2016-spec Mercedes engine.

Livery Reveals

• Haas- 21st Feb.
• Ferrari 19th Feb.

 

Despite Bernie doing his best to make F1 a year-round sport, its still 74 days to Melbourne. 74!

Haas are the only team to announce when they'll unveil their car so far, and that'll be before the first test on 21st Feb.

 

I don't know whether it was the disappointment from last year, but I'm actually quite looking forward to this season.

 

Looking forward to seeing what progress Honda have made.

I hope its lots.

 

Might as well encourage the hopefulness when there's nothing to prove it fruitless

 

I know these videos shouldn't be on here, but like BLS I am attempting to stir up some excitement ahead of this season. If anybody is a follower of Star Wars they will definitely enjoy the video above.

 

Not sure if I'm excited yet, last year was so dire I just don't seem to care about this year.

I hope we can have some racing this time out, also hope that Channel 4 don't turn into the Lewis Show, but I'm not holding my breath.

 

I just hope they don't get Ortis Deley to front the show this time.

 

Alonso Says McLaren-Honda On Track To Improve By Over Two Seconds
Fernando Alonso has today said from what he has seen so far over the break, McLaren-Honda are on track to improve by more than two seconds per lap – Adding weight to the previous claims by Red Bull that McLaren are poised to make the biggest gains for 2016. Alonso, when asked about the two second per lap deficit McLaren have to make up said “I think we’ll improve even more than that, we know the power unit’s ability to deploy without over heating was our main issue last year… I don’t think it requires radical changes to extract the reliability we need out of it, so if we apply some of these solutions and everything is working as we expect, the laptime benefit will be very big. There are solutions now in place which are logical and quite good and keep the motivation very high and I think 2016 will be a completely different picture to last year. ”

According to McLaren the expecatation for most other teams is an improvement of between 0.5s-1.0s per lap which Alonso says is OK because “Everyone will improve between half a second and one second. With us being two seconds off the pace, we need to do more than 0.5s or one second. The power unit’s ability to reliably deploy without over-heating will be the main thing to unlock this potential.”

 

I really hope it's true

 

That's the second time he's been quoted as saying that.

If he keeps saying it enough, maybe it will come true?

 

Ferrari will unveil their challenger on the 19th.

 

Anything due to change with the McLaren livery? Their sponsor situation confuses me. They now have Chandon, the champagne brand, but are they a primary sponsor? (As in, could McLaren go champagne gold with their cars for example), or are they more of a smaller sponsor?

 

I think Dennis sees the Silver and Red/Black as part of McLaren's identity now, despite how awkwardly it clashes with plenty of other teams on the grid.

 

Love what Ron has achieved, respect his style if not always necessarily agreeing with it.

But they need a makeover aesthetically.

 

I'm not sure they should limit that makeover to aesthetics either, something feels wrong at McLaren, operationally they feel a long way behind Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull.

 

I do think thats in progress though. Boullier as racing manager, Prodromou changing the aero philosophy too. They should have had Dan Fallows as well remember but he decided to stick at Red Bull.

But I do think Ron just needs to ease the corporate mentality a little in the MTC just to lighten up the place!

 

Interesting. Maybe first opportunity to see comparative times from McHonda against Ferrari and Renault Power Units.

 

Unsure whether they will have to run 2015 cars with it being a tyre test as opposed to an open test. Regardless, I would imagine they will have 2016 development parts on it which will stand them well for the official test.