Red Bull have flatly denied this, although its been reported by a few of the very reliable journalists. They probably are doing this but why deny it?
Yes i agree, Mclaren v Mercedes would be mouthwatering. The quick rookie of today v 2007 rookie superstar. the 2009 WDC against the new kid on the block which should rival the inter-team battle we saw at Mclaren from 2010-2012 with Lewis beating Button 2-1 and Button outscoring Lewis over the 3 seasons. But as a Ham fan i fear Hami v Nico , Nico looks to to me to be quicker than Hami and i never thought i would say that about any driver plus I have heard Nico talking on Sky to Martin Brundell about the functions on the steering wheel being an advantage to a driver if he knows how to manipulate them especially with the the diff settings when negotiating the bends. As for FA he for me is the best on the grid and will challenge if Ferrari can deliver a competitive car for him , but what will happen if Kimi starts to get the better Of him? We all remember what happened last time a driver with equal status challenged him.
1.6 sec is quite a gap, and I'm not sure about JB but Magnussen set his quick time on supersofts where Lewis and Nico set their times on soft's. So what would happen if the Mercedes was to run a set of supersoft's? Agree regards with reliability though @ Elbando sorry mate 2nd post was a reply to you.
The 1.6 second gap plus the 0.7 second defference in tyres equated to circa 2.3 seconds - depending on driver abilty - which does seem quite alot. However, as I said earlier Nico stated he was the only one to do a full quali run and he was aware that "others" hadnt taken the fuel out. Flip that with Button saying that Merc were the fastest but acknowledging that Mclaren were quick, does that mean that he know the fuel level differences but knows that wouldnt match it? Or is he down playing their own chances?
As a Hamilton fan I will admit to fearing Nico a bit too. Would be a shame for Hamilton to at last have a WDC capable car and to end up losing out for the WDC. I think he is the faster driver on his day though, could be an interesting battle of outright quicker versus consistency. Not unlike Hamilton versus Button again. He had the edge on him last year though. As for the Macca, yes, a bit slower at the mo but let's see what they've got once they start getting into final race trim. Just got a feeling about it.
mouthwatering indeed. Also Another ingredient is McLaren's last dance with merc engines will they go for the last hurrah and stick it to their suppliers before going to Honda? Its a dream scenario really.
Testing analysis - the big talking points from Bahrain Mercedes in pole position Lotus - and Renault - recovering Red Bull yet to bounce back The dark (prancing) horse Marussia on the back foot Williamsâ second Felipe Whereas the opening pre-season test at Jerez last month was all about systems checks and the reliability of the new 1.6-litre turbo power units, the second session in Bahrain last week saw a shift of emphasis towards outright performance - or at least it did for some teams⦠While Mercedes and the similarly-powered Williams and McLaren teams were racking up around 300 laps over the four days, world champions Red Bull remained on the back foot, managing little over 100. We review this and the other major talking points in Sakhir⦠Mercedes in pole position Thereâs no denying that Mercedes are the current favourites for victory at next monthâs season-opening Grand Prix in Australia. Not only did Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton clock the fastest times of the week in Bahrain, they put in 315 laps between them - a total only surpassed by Williams - and carried out both qualifying runs and race simulations in impressively efficient fashion. Rosbergâs fastest lap of 1m 33.283s, set on Pirelliâs soft compound tyre, was within a second of his 2013 pole time at the circuit, proving that the 2014 cars are no slouches, and he could almost certainly have gone quicker, especially with a set of supersofts. Mercedesâ running was not without its problems, but being further down the development path than many rivals meant the team could diagnose and resolve issues quickly and get the F1 W05 back on track, ironing out the kind of difficulties others may not even discover until Melbourne. It was generally good news for the other Mercedes-powered teams, too. McLarenâs MP4-29 was consistently on the pace, while Williams were sufficiently confident of their progress to spend significant time practising pit stops and to give an F1 rookie - new tester Felipe Nasr - a complete day in their FW36. Force India had one or two problems with the VJM07 in Bahrain, but it too looked capable of a decent turn of speed. Lotus - and Renault - recovering After missing the opening test in Spain, Lotus had a lot to do in Bahrain. Predictably, their programme with the asymmetric-nosed E22 did not run entirely smoothly - only Marussia completed fewer laps - but things improved each day, with the last being the teamâs most productive. Encouragingly, Pastor Maldonado also set the fastest time for a Renault-powered car. Less encouraging was the fact that it was over five seconds off Rosbergâs leading pace. Renault admit they are still playing catch up, but at least their reliability looks to have improved, as shown by the 253 laps chalked up by Caterham. Red Bull yet to bounce back After managing a meagre 21 laps in Spain, Red Bull were hoping for dramatic improvement in Bahrain. There was improvement, but it was far from startling. They completed 116 laps - fewer than anyone bar Lotus and Marussia - and Daniel Ricciardoâs best lap of 1m 39.837s put them just 15th on the aggregate timesheet. The team were pleased to have resolved the problems of Jerez, but then kept running into new ones - and with the engineers still getting to grips with working on such a radically different machine, fixing them was rarely the work of a moment. That, of course, was an issue affecting most teams - Ferrari technical chief Pat Fry suggested that jobs on the 2014 cars are currently taking around twice as long as on their 2013 counterparts. The dark (prancing) horse While the headlines tended to focus on Mercedesâ might and Renaultâs plight, it was more a case of âno news is good newsâ at Ferrari. Fernando Alonso and Kimi Raikkonen totalled a highly respectable 287 laps, and just two-tenths of a second separated their best times, suggesting a fascinating battle in prospect between the two former champions this season. They finished sixth and seventh respectively in the aggregate times and, along with Esteban Gutierrez in the Ferrari-powered Sauber, were the only non-Renault runners in the top 12. The only slight blot on the landscape was Raikkonenâs late crash in the final ten minutes of the week, one that highlighted the increased torque of the 2014 power units - something all drivers will need to be wary of this year, both in terms of driving style and managing tyre wear. Marussia on the back foot After beating perennial rivals Caterham to tenth in the 2013 constructorsâ standings, Marussia were hoping to carry that momentum into the new campaign. Unfortunately for the Banbury-based team, they experienced several technical issues at the first test in Jerez, and they were similarly beset by difficulties in Sakhir. The John Booth-led squad bounced back from a computer virus on the first day of running, only to encounter a number of other issues which contributed to their position at the bottom of the mileage charts. On the plus side, things can only get better. Williamsâ second Felipe It seems one Brazilian driver named Felipe wasnât enough for Williams. Joining veteran countryman Massa, 21-year-old Felipe Nasr was announced as the teamâs new test driver on Saturday morning. They wasted no time in putting him in the car, as that same day he got his very first taste of F1 machinery. And a very impressive debut it was too: 87 laps, fourth fastest on the day, and 12th quickest of the 24 drivers in the weekâs aggregate timesheet.
I think Rosberg will be even stronger this year, he keeps on getting finer with age, Hamilton will need to find a new level in his mental performance and outright pace. (Nico is an equal in qualifying as well as race spec goes). Mclaren are in the game this season as well.
29 Retweets please log in to view this image BBC Sport ‏@BBCSport 58m Marussia team principal John Booth fears his car won't be ready for the Australian Grand Prix. http://bbc.in/1fwAM4J pic.twitter.com/iCCQjzaJFl
Fortunately its not as dire as the title suggests Marussia team principal John Booth fears his car will not be ready in time for the season-opening Australian Grand Prix. The team have been dogged by technical issues at testing sessions in Jerez and Bahrain. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried in the slightest," says Booth. "It's okay thinking you can sort the problems, but you have to prove it. But I am very hopeful. "We have done nothing on set-up whatsoever, but having said that the drivers report that what they have done they feel pretty confident with. The brakes are fine and we improved that over the week, it has come on in leaps and bounds."
I think he means he has a good basis, in terms of readiness you are right, we should interpret that as the car not reaching it's potential yet, opposed to not running at all.
I don't care which Mercedes driver wins the title, just that one of them does it! Though I would expect to see a new F1 champion arise be better for F1 than Lewis to win again. Keke and Nico becoming the next father son WDC's.
We'd be better taking a GP2 car to Australia - Kobayashi "We are not at race pace," he said. "In race condition at the moment we should bring a GP2 car - it is like that, the lap time is similar to GP2. "We have so many car problems and we need to do a lot of work. If we had to race now, I think it is not [at the level of] F1."
Ferrari is set to bring its main pre-season upgrade to the final test in Bahrain this week. The team was satisfied with the outcome of the second test, but with the first race of the season just two and half weeks away, director of engineering Pat Fry said the biggest upgrade is still to come. "We had a few bits to test correlation and things like that [last week] and then the main upgrade will come through the various stages of the final test," Fry said. Ferrari technical director James Allison said the team had worked through a number of problem areas at the last test before focusing on setup work "We worked on learning how to get the best from the 2014 clutch and on tuning the new brake by wire system," he told the Ferrari website. "We looked in detail at balancing the temperature of all the cooling fluids, a key part of this year's rules, and we began gradually expanding the operating window of the new Energy Recovery System. "We have been able to start to open up our understanding of the handling characteristics of the car and to begin to learn what sort of setup parameters the tyres respond to. Continuing with this work will be an important part of the programme over the last four days here in Bahrain." Read more at http://en.espnf1.com/ferrari/motorsport/story/146605.html#0ZVJZMZsxAybSvXA.99 Source: ESPN
