That might well make the first rain during a race challenging!! So far half the drivers have had a chance of of testing the halo and rain yesterday. The other halk have no experience so far! Could well be interesting.
so bascially the times are nothing special from anyone and nobody expects them to be.... but... the mercedes is pounding round in a repeat of last year delivering lap after lap. So we can expect them to be rock solid.
looking back at day 1 and 2 last year we are prob quicker this year but a second. with the bad weather it looks like someone will certainly put at least a seond on last years fastest times fo 1:17s maybe someone will dare a 1:16? have to hope.
I know they say dont read too much into times but I think the top 5 teams are pretty certain. How close they are to one another is a different call.
2017 Pole was 1:19:149 on the Soft, so that’s the comparison really. Am I right in thinking that this years tyres are a compound softer - so that would need to be compared to this years medium?
From BBC: 'All of their best times have come on the softs with Kubica recording a time of 1:21.495 from his 29 laps so far, compared to 1:21.822 from Sirotkin in his 52 laps.' Looks like Kubica is fastest driver Williams have but they are using him as reserve! Money , Money, Money........ But points mean money as well!!!!!!
Sirotkin and Stroll are using money bags to add weight and slow the cars down. wait till melbourne! you will see! the whole world will see!
please log in to view this image interesting shot of ferrari Questions: 1. Whats going on with wing mirrors on ferrari? whats the black, i thought it paintwork but it looks different here 2. Dual ducts on side pods. also seem to be directing some air from side of car from ducts, for turbulant air? 3. Ferrari one of a few teams with this thin fin on top of halo. whats that doing for them? 4. not related to pic but no sponsorship on ferrari rear wing.
Again from BBC: Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari, soft) 1:19.673 - 91 laps Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes, medium) 1:19.976 - 94 laps Stoffel Vandoorne (McLaren, hyper-soft) 1:20.325 - 37 laps Max Verstappen (Red Bull, medium) 1:20.326 - 63 laps Carlos Sainz (Renault, soft, pictured) 1:21.212 - 65 laps Pierre Gasly (Toro Rosso, soft) 1:21.318 - 76 laps Robert Kubica (Williams, soft) 1:21.495 - 36 laps Sergey Sirotkin (Williams, soft) 1:21.822 - 52 laps Esteban Ocon (Force India, soft) 1:21.841 - 78 laps Charles Leclerc (Sauber, soft) 1:22.721 - 81 laps Kevin Magnussen (Haas, soft) 1:22.727 - 32 laps So McRenault is only 0.7 seconds off Ferrari. OK so Stoffel was using Hyper Soft but it does seem that the car has pace, maybe not enough grip but seems like Renault PU is working OK in McLaren with just a few burn marks on engine cover. So looking good. Saying that the Honda PU doesnt seem to be doing badly at all in the TR. Good to see Honda finally having some reliability with a reasonable turn of speed.
I don't know how temps or time of day affected fastest laps? Overall the honda guys must be very happy so far. It couldn't be a bigger contrast to last year without entering fantasy land. I don't really set much store in those hyper softs in cold weather i doubt they got much grip.?
Per car Renault is getting the least laps, but overall it's still Honda due to having just the one team. Really could do with having both bull teams.
I think the only thing that we can take from testing so far is that Honda might have finally got on top of their reliability issues. Maybe we can see them start to turn the wick up on it now.
For F1s sake I hope they have. The more closely matched PUs the better. It’s the sort of two days McLaren would have hoped for last season. That said, the true test is when lap time is the key focus.
