Hamilton agrees with you. Either the softs are worse than last year's, or more setup work is required to get the best out of them. http://beta.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/123054/hamilton-work-to-be-done-on-softs
I think these super and ultra softs are not really made for Barcelona- you will see them at the street circuits. I suspect that the cooler track temps barely help either. Who knows whether someone can get the regular softs working for longer though- it could be a real advantage of you can. Re: Alonso and Button, they belong in the fight with Ham and Vettel but we have a while to wait I think.
Might make us revise our view of how close other cars are that have set their faster times on softs. They may be closer to the leaders who have set fast times on mediums than we thought.
It looks like the front runners have smaller deltas between the softer compounds than the cars further back. Maybe this is highlighting the design philosophy between the Merc/Ferrari and the rest of the field?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/35714906 Sorry but this will not work IMHO . What if it rains ? and to say it will not affect drivers vision ..........
57 laps for McLaren and Alonso this morning. Whilst they haven't lit up the timing screens, these two weeks are so important in their phase of development. Such a change from last season. Whilst they are not fully out of the woods yet, these last three days with the new engine configure must give them some hope of developing throughout the season off a more reliable base.
What's the opinion on Ferrari folks? Are they right on the Merc tail or are Merc going to come out with a hammer blow either here or Melbourne to stamp superiority?
Exactly, no point fight more than one fire.. a reliable base was key.. it appears to be more so than last years.. Now, they can ramp up the performance, not sure how much more but it should help them be more competitive than last year. Which, lets be honest, wasn't going to be too hard to achieve!
They appear to be in the mix.. which is great for us fans! Multi-team/car battle is what will keep things interesting, not gimmicky rule changes!
I still think that the Merc will be the quickest car and the most efficient over a race distance - as can be seen by their runs on the medium. However, I have a feeling that Ferrari will be closer than last year on pure car pace and will be quicker at different tracks with tyre compound and temperature variances. Strategy and intra team battles will be key!
Alonso has just gone out and I believe is starting a race-simulation. Hopefully he completes it and gives the team some valuable information on race pace. Temperatures have cooled. On a separate note, a very smart time just posted by Massa on the soft tyre. They look like starting the season strong at Williams.
the merc will be the best or 2nd best at every track, I can see Ferrari getting more wins than last year, RBR will come on strong in the 2nd half of the season and Williams could throw a spanner in mercedes works here and there. I fully expect mercedes to be WCC, the WDC is a different story and may come down Kimi. An 87 or 07 could happen
Yep impressive! A 1:23.193 from Williams on the softs? Interesting. It's Felipe Massa and the team's personal best for the test so far, bettering the previous benchmark of team-mate Valtteri Bottas by a tenth. And Bottas was running the supersofts.
Halo head protection concept tried out by Kimi today. Not convinced how many lives it will have saved. Would Bianchi survived his crash with the digger where the car went underneath it? Wilson and Surtees Jr died from impacts that landed directly on top of their helmets, so would still be potentially exposed. Even with Massa's injury at Hungary it's debatable as the part was so small it would have fitted through the gap. So what is it actually protecting against? If it's simply a straight on impact with a large object then fine, but in all other contexts surely there are still too many holes in it for objects to strike a driver? Am all for safety, but with something like this surely you either go closed cockpit or nothing?
I suppose it would protect from a car riding over another and from large objects like wheels coming from the front. In the end you can't legislate for everything. Personally I don't think it's effective against enough of a range of potential incidents to be worth the very large aesthetic change.
Looks like Alonso was not doing a race sim and is instead playing around on different stints and setups. The Spaniard has passed 95 laps now in total. Anyone think Williams might be a team to being strong before being out developed?
I'm failing to see the point of the continuous running on the Meds by the Mercs. I know given the percentage of laps run during the season, the Meds will be most used, but surprised they haven't attempted to give the Softs and esp. the Super Softs a decent run.. They're taking sandbagging to a whole new level.. I do hope the likes of Ferrari and Williams give them a damn good run for their money!!
