which is a bit of a shame as I actually thought the tyres were about right last season, we had races were lots of different strategies made it far more interesting than it could've been.
140+ laps for Merc today.. Honda with a total over two days less than what Hamilton did this morning... [facepalm]
The merc is simply awesome. i mean if on day 2 you can go do full race sims and you've got your aero data in they must be flying. I think the 3 stops is to get wear data off the tyres and not run them into the ground. I would say they prob have gathers quite a bit of tyre data now... though its cold there compared to the season proper. The bright spot there is a ferrari single lap time and similar if not a full race sim type of reliability. I think that time could mean anything and nothing. but a reliabile ferrari is a good thing for the season.
in the end on tyres.... if you could only get a lap out of them and then went into stretching them out.. .whats the point? last year was far too much just holding station and doing nothing now in THEORY they need and can go flat out all the time. that breaks cars but equally we could see mercedes lap up to 4th or 6th... thats the trade off
wht i don't get is how on earth williams managed to travel to barcelona where there are gravel traps... only to have the kid end up in one and they have to "send parts back" to get them fixed like you have FOUR DAYS and you will lose A WHOLE DAY cos you've no spares? WTF?
Wings aren't cheap mate, they're no longer a manufacture backed team and costs are a big issue.. They most likely have more wings in the pipeline but can't afford to mass produce them like Merc, Ferrari, Red Bull teams and McHonda.
yeah but this is testing and you have to run. they are losing a lot from this. i know hey are very expensive but they should at minimum have a couple of variants to test. plus they hired a kid to put in the car AND know full well what barcelona is like... especially in the cold weather (relatively) that tests start in. seriously.. the cost of flying it back and forth is not small either.
interesting that they sent him back out after bumping the ball. deffo flat spotted them so yeah had to stop.
Big old "kiss" of the barriers there.. if that didn't damage the suspension that bloody thing is bullet proof too! Maybe another added benefit of the bigger rear tires, more impact absorption
Are we sure it's just damage to the wings? If he also damaged the floor or suspension then that would be something they probably may not have had a spare in the pitlane with. Would be surprised if they didn't have at least one spare wing hanging around.
we don't know i think. they called it innocuous.. It can't be the floor if its flown home to be "fixed" and be back tomorrow. he just spun into gravel so dunno about suspension. he drove back to pits ok.
Good mileage for most teams.. Below average for Renault and.. Less said about McLaren and Williams the better!
I think this is solely down to the TV director(s). Formula E manages to look fast despite doing half the speed, through clever use of camera angles, etc. F1 seems to love shots that are good for showing sponsor logos off, but don't give you a true appreciation of the speed. Hopefully something Liberty can correct.