Tbh, given that he's getting Friday practice sessions, I expect him to replace Maldonado halfway through the year. Dunno what it is but I like this bloke already. P.S. He doesn't have a particularly Finnish name; no "H"s, no "K"s, and his surname doesn't end in "en". I expect the next one to be named "Kiko Heineken"!
Four red flags caused by Daniel in testing so far, two of which have happened today now. Either they're testing fuel starvation or he will not be happy.
Autosport incidentally, reckons they were testing fuel starvation? Anyone know if thats just to find how little fuel it can run, as a base to plan fuel loads, or is there other reasons?
Senna is supposed to be bringing a big sponsorship package isn't he? Maybe they feel they no longer need Maldo's money, or are about to lose it anyway as there was some sort of furore towards the end of last year about it, I can't remember exactly what. If that's the case though, it seems odd that they'd give him Senna's car for FP1, so maybe Senna is the one potentially being replaced.
Vettel and Hamilton with almost identical average lap times (0.01 diff) during a 9 and 10 lap run on the softs. We dont know the fuel loads but still interesting though.
Probably just making sure the car still runs ok down to one litre of fuel. They have to leave a litre in (I think it's a litre?) for the FIA inspections, and consumption would be calculated at each track.
I'd forgotten about the 1l sample thing, but I was more wondering whether they were trying to account for any residual fuel left in the system when the car runs dry. The fuel lines, etc, won't be completely empty, but that fuel probably can't be removed for sampling, so the teams would need to know how much fuel they'd be losing?
Doesn't it piss off the other teams when one of them stops, effectively deliberately, causing a red flag or are they all warned in advance?
Again, Autosport covered this in their live text. Apparently everyone has to do it at some point, and they usually try to pick a moment when the track is empty and conditions aren't perfect, in order to minimise impact.
I don't think Hamilton is on a racing simulation. His lap times aren't getting much quicker (unlike Vettel) and everytime he pits it takes a few minutes before Hamilton is back out.
Well if (terms and conditions apply) he's started each of those 10-ish lap runs on the same fuel load and roughly similarly degraded tyres then they've found some interesting setup changes to gain two seconds a lap in the few minutes he's been in the pits each time.
Maybe, they should know the volume of the fuel lines though before they start, they'd also draw loads of air into the system when they run it dry so I doubt they'd get a consistent reading each time. Bit confused about the whole thing, with all the technology and data they have I can't think why they'd need to run the car completely empty to find out something.
I haven't been following the session too closely, but whether there's an innocent explanation or not, it isn't good for Torro Rosso to be seen to be the team that regularly draws red flags and safety cars. I'll be surprised if this issue doesn't become a bigger one this year.
It'd almost be nice to have a quick yet unreliable car in the sport for a change wouldn't it? I used to enjoy the days when some teams, Mclaren come to mind, could build an absolute rocket-ship, but it was a small miracle if it finished the race. The number of technical retirements is much, much lower than it ever used to be. On the other hand, maybe Toro Rosso have a secret system on board which when deployed causes the car to stop. They can then spend the whole season strategically deploying it whenever Red Bull need a safety car.
Was it a complete race simulation and if so does anyone know how it would compare to last years race time?
[table="width: 250"] [tr] [td]Lap[/td] [td]Time[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]1[/td] [td]out-lap (soft tyres)[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]2[/td] [td]1:29.165[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]3[/td] [td]1:29.334[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]4[/td] [td]1:29.591[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]5[/td] [td]1:29.643[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]6[/td] [td]1:29.889[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]7[/td] [td]1:29.911[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]8[/td] [td]1:30.409[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]9[/td] [td]1:30.480[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]10[/td] [td]1:30.431[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]11[/td] [td]1:30.568[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]12[/td] [td]in-lap[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]13[/td] [td]out-lap (medium tyres)[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]14[/td] [td]1:32.688[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]15[/td] [td]1:51.152[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]16[/td] [td]1:49.523[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]17[/td] [td]1:29.329[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]18[/td] [td]1:28.673[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]19[/td] [td]1:28.703[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]20[/td] [td]1:28.853[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]21[/td] [td]1:28.900[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]22[/td] [td]1:29.063[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]23[/td] [td]1:29.480[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]24[/td] [td]1:29.251[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]25[/td] [td]1:29.607[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]26[/td] [td]1:29.586[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]27[/td] [td]in-lap[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]28[/td] [td]out-lap (medium tyres)[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]29[/td] [td]1:26.743[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]30[/td] [td]1:27.167[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]31[/td] [td]1:27.386[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]32[/td] [td]1:28.262[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]33[/td] [td]1:27.892[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]34[/td] [td]1:28.202[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]35[/td] [td]1:28.242[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]36[/td] [td]1:28.074[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]37[/td] [td]1:28.076[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]38[/td] [td]1:28.104[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]39[/td] [td]1:28.096[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]40[/td] [td]in-lap[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]41[/td] [td]out-lap (hard tyres)[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]42[/td] [td]1:26.065[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]43[/td] [td]1:26.947[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]44[/td] [td]1:28.384[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]45[/td] [td]1:28.923[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]46[/td] [td]1:29.032[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]47[/td] [td]1:28.380[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]48[/td] [td]1:27.279[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]49[/td] [td]1:27.377[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]50[/td] [td]1:27.609[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]51[/td] [td]1:28.168[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]52[/td] [td]1:27.948[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]53[/td] [td]in-lap[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]54[/td] [td]outlap (hard tyres)[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]55[/td] [td]1:26.425[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]56[/td] [td]1:24.480[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]57[/td] [td]1:24.601[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]58[/td] [td]1:25.376[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]59[/td] [td]1:25.216[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]60[/td] [td]in-lap[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]61[/td] [td]out-lap (tyres unknown)[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]62[/td] [td]1:23.806[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]63[/td] [td]1:24.036[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]64[/td] [td]1:24.443[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]65[/td] [td]1:24.395[/td] [/tr] [tr] [td]66[/td] [td]in-lap[/td] [/tr] [/table] On Lap 15 and 16 it looks like Vettel is simulating a safety car - can't see any other reason why he would be going so slowly. On laps 44-47 Vettel was stuck behind Hamilton on the track (which is why he was much slower). Not sure what Vettel was doing when he came into the pits on lap 60 - he might have been simulating a drive-through penalty, but based on his laptimes afterwards it looks like he switched to a new set of hard tyres. Trying to work out the ultimate pace of the RB8. Does anyone know what the difference in laptime between full tanks and qualifying. How much was it in the races last year - 8 or 9 seconds? That would give us a better indication of Red Bull's ultimate pace. Their fastest race sim lap was 1.23.8 - looking at the two races that Vettel pushed for the fastest lap, he was 3.5 off his qualy pace in Korea and 3 seconds slower than his qualy pace in India. So based on that, RB8's ultimate pace could be 1:20.3 - is that beatable?
Oh, I'd love that. I just think it's unfortunate that a team closely affiliated to Red Bull seems best placed to assume that role. But to be honest I find edgy drivers more exciting than cars whose engines randomly explode. *cue the Hamilton debate*
I prefer the cast-iron reliability we have today. I'd rather see 24 finishers than Hungary 1997 or Monaco 1996. I'm full of admiration for the engineers and mechanics who deliver such consistent high quality in an era of extremely restricted testing. I know it can be boring if the top ten is always the same drivers slightly reshuffled and when the fastest car is always the one to finish first but I'd rather be bored than gutted.
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97634 - Hamilton http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/97633 - Alonso
