Jesus! Any idea what tyres he's on? Judging by that picture the front wheels are off the ground, must be the rears degrading. Edit: Softs according to Autosport.
The new rear of the red bull looks very nice. It's going to be very quick, but for love of god, lets hope it breaks down alot
If they don't do something drastic in the next week I think they'll be sick of blue flags by sundown next Sunday.
At this rate they won't have enough tyres to reach sundown. Most teams are doing race sims, Merc struggle to stay out long enough to do a quali sim.
HRT apparently not going to make final day of testing, but WILL do a filming day at Barcelona on Monday. So at least they're not shaking the car down in qualifying this year. And that's a good thing.
Norbert Haug's answering emails on [email protected] after lunch so maybe he can reassure Mercedes fans along with providing an explanation as to exactly what the point of running last year's car in the first test to comprehensively baseline the new tyres was.
Not sure if legs are beginning to be stretched (Hamilton said there'd be no low fuel runs by McLaren in testing) but Button just nearly put in a good lap - best first sector then was probably told to cool it - 1:22.1. Rosberg has been improving on soft tyres:
Webber's last run was on a par with Rosberg's (improved) last run - 2½ seconds over ten laps. McLaren (following a hydraulic issue earlier) aren't doing much you can analyse - sporadic quickish laps and clusters of laps. Ferrari are doing a nice but not stellar race sim - controlled degradation, much better than Mercedes' early runs, but not stunning lap times. Rosberg's improved again - sub-1:30s with only around 2½ seconds lost over fifteen laps. Webber's the interesting one I think, with Ted Kravitz's concern over the heat generated at the back from the new exhaust layout. There's been a big jump in lap times at 14:38 due to rain at turn 7. Is this as much as we're going to get from today?
A number of teams are not interested in wet weather running, including McLaren and Red Bull. Why is it that Ferrari and Mercedes are out there risking their cars? Desperate for track time, perhaps, or is there nothing to read in it?
I suppose there are certain benefits, but I think you hit the nail on the head with your own reasoning...
BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson: "Going out to watch on the track has given me another change to get a look at how the Ferrari is behaving. After about two laps, it's generating terrible understeer into the fast Turn Three, and after a couple more laps Felipe Massa was having to go down a gear just to get the car turned in. In the slow corners, once the tyres are wearing down, the front is washing out on the exits, and then there is wheelspin. If you contrasted that with other cars out at the same time, such as Paul di Resta's Force India, the balance did not change from the start of the stint to the end. The Ferrari looks like it has an initial lap time in it - but after that the pace goes away quite quickly."
I already love Gary Anderson, it's a shame it took Sky getting their hands on half the races for him to come to our attention. EDIT: Also yeah, people forget that the key thing about the Ferrari is its unpredictability at the moment. They will, however, surge near the end of the season, much like Mclaren have done these last couple of years.
Their fastest lap was on supersofts and Mclaren's fastest was on softs. Of course we don't know fuel loads.
From the times so far, and from one or two quotes, I don't think there is much difference between the soft and supersoft.
Random internet guy (@f1enigma) says that AMuS reckons McLaren were using the Mercedes Magic Front Wing™ today. By ignoring the blue flags maybe...
I am sickened by their degradation of their tyres, and I agree that this will be their fate if something does not improve ^^.
