Official: Testing Thread

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AbsolutelyGlorious said:
My guess would be how the tyres react to a heat cycle, or how quickly they can get them up to temperature and how hard it is to keep them there.
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Sounds reasonable. Button did a similar run but not as quick and obviously it's complete speculation that they're trying the same thing on similar fuel loads etc.
 
Lunchtime update:

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<table class="tableizer-table">
<tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th>Pos</th><th>Driver</th><th>Team</th><th>Time</th><th>Laps</th></tr> <tr><td>1</td><td>*Schumacher</td><td>Mercedes</td><td>*1m18.561s</td><td>53</td></tr> <tr><td>2</td><td>*Webber</td><td>Red Bull</td><td>*1m19.184s**+0.623</td><td>58</td></tr> <tr><td>3</td><td>*Ricciardo</td><td>Toro Rosso</td><td>*1m19.587s**+1.026</td><td>41</td></tr> <tr><td>4</td><td>*Bianchi</td><td>Force India</td><td>*1m20.221s**+1.660</td><td>46</td></tr> <tr><td>5</td><td>*Raikkonen</td><td>Lotus</td><td>*1m20.239s**+1.678</td><td>26</td></tr> <tr><td>6</td><td>*Button</td><td>McLaren</td><td>*1m20.688s**+2.127</td><td>27</td></tr> <tr><td>7</td><td>*Massa</td><td>Ferrari</td><td>*1m21.060s**+2.499</td><td>38</td></tr> <tr><td>8</td><td>*Maldonado</td><td>Williams</td><td>*1m21.197s**+2.636</td><td>61</td></tr> <tr><td>9</td><td>*Perez</td><td>Sauber</td><td>*1m21.289s**+2.728</td><td>35</td></tr> <tr><td>10</td><td>*Kovalainen</td><td>Caterham</td><td>*1m21.518s**+2.957</td><td>78</td></tr> <tr><td>11</td><td>*De la Rosa</td><td>HRT</td><td>*1m23.468s**+4.907</td><td>23</td></tr></table>
 
From Autosport:

Webber did two longer runs for Red Bull - each lasting 10 laps, and both averaging low 1m22s. That followed his qualifying-style 1m19s blasts of earlier this morning.

Ferrari just seem happy to be doing their own thing.
 
The Hatem-Bomb said:
Ferrari seem worryingly off the pace if im honest
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Don't worry about it yet:
Ferrari Twitter said:
Today's work will be the same as yesterday. We need to collect as many data as possible to understand better the behaviour of the car.
So, don't expect to see spectacular lap times from our side. What is important is that we do our job in the proper way.
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BBC F1 pit-lane reporter Lee McKenzie
"As you know, Mercedes are the only top team here in Jerez who are running an old 2011 car. The word on the street is that the reason they are not here with a 2012 car is that they are trying to hide a clever new front wing they have developed - they don't want their rivals to see it too early. It seems the word is already out, though."

So it's the front wing they are hiding?
 
EternalMSC said:
BBC F1 pit-lane reporter Lee McKenzie
"As you know, Mercedes are the only top team here in Jerez who are running an old 2011 car. The word on the street is that the reason they are not here with a 2012 car is that they are trying to hide a clever new front wing they have developed - they don't want their rivals to see it too early. It seems the word is already out, though."

So it's the front wing they are hiding?
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Why not run the new car with an old wing? They may or may not have a trick front wing, but if the chassis was ready they'd run it.
 
BrightLampShade said:
McLarens brighter start is going downhill. Only 35 laps today
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A lot of those were out and straight back in, too, like installation laps after some substantial change. I don't think Button's strung together more than five laps today, so Ferrari are up on that.

It's worth considering that both teams have significantly redesigned cars compared to Red Bull's fourth iteration of the RB5. I'm sure they're working on establishing what direction it's best to develop in between now and Melbourne and how best to make use of the remaining tests.

Mercedes must be getting tons of information on tyre performance but I wonder how transferable that'll be?

It's going to be compelling to watch how Force India, Lotus and Toro Rosso fare against the top teams as the tests progress and the top teams start to focus on lap times. We've seen midfield teams flatter to deceive in early tests before.
 
BrightLampShade said:
They said Mercedes had that f-duct(ish) front wing at the back end of last season. If they are hiding something its a big gamble to hide it so much that they miss four days if testing.
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I thought the drivers hated the way the 'blown front wing' effected handling under braking, so they ruled the concept out? Unless they've completely reworked it of course.
 
With the rising number of champions there are 4 drivers on the grid who have had 2 champions for teammates

Hamilton: Alonso and Button
Button: Hamilton and Villeneuve
Massa: Raikkonen and Alonso
Grosjean: Raikkonen and Alonso
 
Headline-grabbing hot laps aside, Massa managed to get on par with Webber and Schumacher on those consistent longer runs (1:20/21-ish), although the commentary indicated that he was quite ragged in achieving it. Raikkonen looks next best (1:22/23-ish) but Kovalainen also managed a couple of runs of that order. Button's back in Force India territory (1:24/25-ish).

Not that we can read much into anything at this stage.
 
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