Cool conditions will stop us seeing true performance but even so, it’s hard to knock the consistency of Mercedes on medium tyres. Very impressive again. RBR look about 4 tenths behind them on same compound, and Ferrari also appear close and consistent again. The three of them stand out, unsurprisingly. We really need some warmer weather though to begin to simulate a bit more of what these cars will be like come Melbourne.
I still think Merc are not using any of their 'quali modes' but at least we might have more of a battle between the rest. That said Renault are already saying that they might plan on taking penalties to get updated components on their PU's!!!! So Horner is rightly moaning for once. Seems like Renault are suggesting that if the PU are run at highest power they wont last 7 races but if they turn down the wick they could do 7 races per PU!! Maybe the Honda might be better but we will have to wait and see. You can't really blame McL for binning Honda, you can only take so much before you call it quits. Doesn't really matter how well Honda do this year as if it were in the back of a McL it might have been worse than in a TR.
Looks like Stoffel Vandoorne and his McLaren had an exhaust clip break, which caused overheating in the engine bay and that meant he could not get back out there after his 37 laps. So that's what the scorched engine cover was about.
We know how this goes... we're not going to know for sure until late in testing. Even then we might still have some sandbagging going on.
Snow at the track this morning. Red flag until the helicopter is able to take off safely. They really ought to be in Jerez or perhaps a warmer continent at this time of year.
What was wrong with Abu Dhabi? Missing a whole days testing will have a great affect. Can't tell who is on it or not yet, I'll wait till Melbourne Quali again.
Wasnt it Abu Dhabi or Bahrain that had days cancelled because of sand storms. you cant win against weather
I can very much believe that the teams couldn't agree with each other. Red bull probably wanted 9-4 and Ferrari wanted 10-5. Therefore we're not having it
I think partly the cost of shipping, and also the length of time it takes. Getting everything there initially either requires really expensive air freight, or them to finish the car sooner so it can go by sea. Also if they need a new part, it can't be manufactured and on the car within the same/next day, as is possible within Europe. Under Bernie, he wasn't prepared to help out with the shipping costs, and the weather is rarely this poor, so the teams didn't want the extra expense for potentially no reason.
The timeframe for getting everything out there is the most likely issue, but logistically it makes sense in that they are half way to Melbourne. The problem really is that the teams run all this cloak and dagger **** right up until P1 at Melbourne. Maybe it would force the teams to turn up with a new spec car and test as they would if they had a track to themselves? On a seperate note to the poor weather conditions making the times less representative, the track has also been resurfaced meaning that most (if not all) comparison data is non representative, especially tyre wear.
Quite right. Agree with all of the above guys, there are far better options than Barcelona weather wise. Boullier was saying earlier that Bahrain testing cropped up as an idea again in the off season but no one would agree it. Apparantly it’s to be discussed again in the future.
Tippy-toe speeds are probably worse for the engine, you aren't getting the same volume of cool air over the radiators.
To be fair, they can sort cooling. The issues they had with Honda these past 3 years were obviously somewhat more complex or there were many of them. Renault need to deliver a reliable PU this year given they’ve been in the game the same time as Merc and Ferrari.
