Alonso didn't seem too upbeat and pointed to the fact that a lot of his work was on quali runs - the question is how much fuel does the Ferrai & Merc have in on their runs? I personally feel that they have made little progress (hope I'm wrong) but they are still down 10KPH+ down the straights - and this is not a power track! In years gone by Barca was always the bench mark and the theory was that if you went well here you would everywhere - but I don't think that is so true now with new tracks, track amendments, tyre preservation and fuel preservation.
I also think Rosberg is going to fight every inch of every corner this year- it's **** or bust for him so he might as well piss his team off than be 2nd again. I'm hoping that's what opens the championship door for the chasers but we will see.
The other thing to consider is have McHonda fixed their electrical harvesting/storage to the degree necessary to use it fully every lap? I really hope they have and this 1.5sec gap is at worst real, and could be achieved every lap with the hope of closing through the season. I would love McHonda to be giving Merc a run for their money. I would be happy for any team to give Merc some decent competition. Just be good if it was McHonda.
unless they put in some sort of windscreen whatever solution they come up with is always going to look ****
The visibility is worrying- has anyone commented on that yet within the sport? We need to increase head protection for sure- it's a tough one to perfect.
Raikonnen has just dropped in a 1:23 zero on soft compound to go within hundredths of Rosbergs leading time in the whole of testing on the same compound. Looks like we may see things ramp up! EDIT: Faster than Rosberg. Expect a 1:22.5 now from Merc....
Fastest laps of testing so far 1. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, 1:22.810, ultrasoft tyres, Day Two 2. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:23.009, soft tyres, Day Seven 3. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:23.022, soft tyres, Day Five 4. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, 1:23.110, supersoft tyres, Day Three 5. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1:23.261, supersoft tyres, Day Six
I don't think the visibility will be that impaired, at least not the one in the centre,it's probably close to the eyes natural dead centre blind spot, the only places I can think of it being a problem is just before and uphill, it's just that they look ****
Haven't got much on that at the moment Ern- they hadn't really been pushing the car. They have only just begun their set up work so I assume that we might see an informing long run today or tomorrow, in amongst a glimpse of their quali lap. I think we can safely assume they will be comfortably down on Ferrari and Merc but the interesting thing is how much can they reduce the gap, and as you say can they be light on their feet and go longer.
As we keep hearing from McLaren, there's also plenty more still to come for the MP4-31. “There isn’t much to read into the timesheets at the moment, as we haven’t yet turned our attention to the performance of the package," team boss Eric Boullier said last night. "However, the numbers we can read from the track show the car is behaving as we predicted. We’re gradually bringing more new parts over the final two days of the test, so it’s going to be a heavily updated chassis by the time we get to Australia. If the correlation is good with these too, it will be a positive step."
I hope they've sorted it out, it would be a bit of a shock if they hadn't, but they gotta play catch-up still. Last seasons critical design flaw made it impossible to see any improvements anywhere else on the car, if they'd gained a second we probably would've missed it! This season if they can start with a reasonable Q2-Q3 car then I could see them getting to the sharp end by seasons end, I think Honda have the best chance to improve performnce, I can't remember who is was that said prior to last season that Honda are always terrible in their first season. It could, of course, be wishful thinking as I think we need Alonso and Button at the sharp end.
Doesn't seem to be a jump on the very soft quali compounds - wonder if they just cant last the lap or the teams don't understand them enough yet? Raikkonen's 1:22.765 is 0.045 seconds quicker than team-mate Sebastian Vettel managed on the same ultrasoft compound last week, meaning Ferrari now hold the first, second and third quickest times of pre-season.
