News on Mercedes: Tobias Grüner F1 ‏@tgruener #F1 Mercedes lack of running today because of long gearbox inspection. Rosberg will get back out after break. http://ticker.auto-motor-und-sport.de/
Glad to see such interest with Mercedes on the Sky ticker, last year they couldn't give 10 rats arses about it And Seb goes almost 0.250 faster than last year.
They never left tbh, again this car reminds me very much of the W02. But they should sort things out before the first race like they did then, maybe even sooner.
I have a feeling this season is going to be the best yet. So many teams could be battling for wins and podiums. Ferrari, RBR, Mclaren, Sauber, Lotus, Mercedes and maybe Williams. Imagine a title fight between Alonso, Vettel, Button, Webber, Raikkonen, Perez and hopefully Rosberg and Hamilton!
RB9 looking quick. Lotus looking quick. Ferrari almost as quick as those 2. Mercedes having reliability troubles again, this time with gearbox. Esteban caused a red flag. Williams have a similar exhaust wing like Caterham at Jerez but it has a slit in the middle. Usual stuff from TR and FI. Back runners acting like back runners. McLaren are still sandbagging it seems. Top 4 times set on the hard tyre.
No Monkey seat for the RB9 anymore: please log in to view this image They must have plenty of rear downforce then...
This is testing though. Perhaps they're just removing it to see if it makes that much of a difference.
Yeah they said it would take them about an hour to fix, so should be any time soon they come back out.
Possibly, that or somehow they got it to work like the RB7 again.....don't think they bothered with a monkey seat that year I think.
Another thing we achieved during lunch was to look at all of last year's times at Barcelona. Sebastian Vettel's 2013-best, which was set on the Pirelli hard tyres, is already faster than anyone went on the same compounds last year.
Very clever from Williams, leaving a very small gap in the bodywork so the exhaust is technically legal: please log in to view this image