Official Pre-season testing thread

Eat Sleep Watch F1 Repeat · Feb 21, 2014

Small hydraulic issue for Hamilton

allsaintchris. · Feb 21, 2014

Has any team actually completed a full race sim as yet?

Piebacca · Feb 21, 2014

Hard day for the Williams mechanics. 70 pit stops.

Eat Sleep Watch F1 Repeat · Feb 21, 2014

Red Bull done for today, having more cooling issues.

BrightLampShade · Feb 21, 2014

Probably run out of bodywork to burn.

Eat Sleep Watch F1 Repeat · Feb 21, 2014

BrightLampShade said:
Probably run out of bodywork to burn.

Well according to sky sports news, they're still drilling holes in the bodywork..

EternalMSC · Feb 21, 2014

Poor Redbull, what an awful start to the year. Who would have thought it would be this bad.

51LV3R8RR04 · Feb 21, 2014

allsaintchris. said:
Has any team actually completed a full race sim as yet?

Mercedes only at Jerez with Rosberg.

EternalMSC · Feb 21, 2014

Once a problem is solved another one occurs for RedBull being tested to their limits in testing.

51LV3R8RR04 · Feb 21, 2014

13:38 The team's race engineer co-ordinator Andy Damerum says Red Bull found the problem while making set-up changes over lunch.

"In doing so we came across a mechanical issue that we hadn’t encountered before and because of its nature it means we have to take the car apart.

"As everyone in the pitlane is finding out this is a long process, so we decided to suspend running in the afternoon so that we can be ready for the final day.

"These issues are of course frustrating but this was unrelated to the others so it's just a case of tackling each issue as it appears.

"A tough night in prospect but we hope to get a good day in tomorrow."

Red Bull finding more problems than at the speed in which they can fix them it seems.

Forza Bianchi · Feb 21, 2014

Button does a race simulation. But what were the laptimes?

16:44 Button creates the landing point. After a total of 100 laps, he comes into the pits. He graduated from the racing simulator successfully. 17 laps on super soft, 12 laps on soft and 30 laps on medium - makes 59 rounds. The race distance is 57 laps in Bahrain - plus a lap and a cool-down lap.

Forza Bianchi · Feb 21, 2014

BBC Radio 5 live pit-lane reporter Jennie Gow
"A bit of detail on the state of play with the Renault engines at the moment. They are not being able to run the full mapping and are about 100-150bhp down on the Mercedes and Ferrari. Teams are not being allowed to do any functionality testing - just running round in circles at a lot less power than everyone else. They have improved massively in a short space of time but there is still a long way to go."

Eat Sleep Watch F1 Repeat · Feb 21, 2014

You have to admire Ricciardo's optimism again but from the outside looking in it's clear that Red Bull are still struggling and making little progress.

allsaintchris. · Feb 21, 2014

It's painful to watch RBR at the moment.

My ribs are hurting so much from the laughter.

Please, someone make them stop testing!

Big Ern · Feb 21, 2014

Believe In Lewis said:
You have to admire Ricciardo's optimism again but from the outside looking in it's clear that Red Bull are still struggling and making little progress.

little progress? They were the worst performer at the first test, they've done a fair few laps now, not as many as they'd like, but enough, there's a reason these guys have been WDC/WCC for 4 years in a row and to write them off before the last pre season test has started is foolish. Having the renault engine may cause a head-ache if that takes too long to get right, but I expect the RBR to be up there when the lights chequered flag comes out in adelaide, maybe not on the top step, but there or there abouts.

ched999uk · Feb 21, 2014

Khal Piego said:
Hard day for the Williams mechanics. 70 pit stops.

Any any idea why Williams would waste time doing pit stops when they could be doing setup and aero testing?
They can do cold pit stops any time, ok so hot pit stops are better for training but surely running is so much more important at this stage?

Any ideas?

Eat Sleep Watch F1 Repeat · Feb 21, 2014

Miggins said:
little progress? They were the worst performer at the first test, they've done a fair few laps now, not as many as they'd like, but enough, there's a reason these guys have been WDC/WCC for 4 years in a row and to write them off before the last pre season test has started is foolish. Having the renault engine may cause a head-ache if that takes too long to get right, but I expect the RBR to be up there when the lights chequered flag comes out in adelaide, maybe not on the top step, but there or there abouts.

I'm not writing them off, no way. I just think they haven't made enough progress yet. Look at Caterham, they have done more mileage than Red Bull. Why? Because they have a better cooling package at the moment, Red Bull are still suffering from overheating problems, yes they have completed more laps in Jerez which is some progress but it's not huge. They are still suffering from the same issues.

BrightLampShade · Feb 21, 2014

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