Official: Testing Thread

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Mostly missed today's testing but after a quick scan of times I was impressed by the mileage Hamilton got in today, closely followed by Bottas and the Hulk. Hulk got some good times in all through the day today so hopefully the Force India has some real pace
 
Gary Anderson said:
Everyone expects Red Bull to be disguising their true pace in winter testing, but from Wednesday's running it does not look as if they are. Sebastian Vettel's fastest lap was a 1:22.891 and when he started a race simulation run in the afternoon he was lapping in the 1:29s. That six-second margin is about what you'd expect it to be from a full load to a low-fuel run - so Vettel's fastest lap does appear to be on pretty low fuel. The off-set between Hamilton's laps on a race-type run and his fastest overall was about the same as Vettel's, and the margin between the race-distance lap-time averages and one-off laps was very similar for both drivers. All of which suggests the gap you see between Red Bull and McLaren on headline lap times is not far off the real one.
Click to expand...

Red Bull still looking like the ones to beat, despite this being "only testing".
 
Trackside at Barcelona: Red Bull vs McLaren

Some key points:
  • Turn 1: Hamilton, frankly, looked mighty through here. Late on the brakes, he banged down the gears with absolute confidence and was able to get on the power very fractionally earlier than Vettel...and stay there.

  • Both cars handed the transition from Turn 2 into Turn 3 very well, but Hamilton opted for a slightly wider line on entry and a more aggressive turn-in, to which the car responded excellently, while Vettel held his Red Bull on a tighter line.

  • Campsa was more revealing. It is preceded by a medium-speed left-hander, in which the McLaren looked a little more of a handful than the Red Bull. In Campsa itself, both cars looked excellent, certainly a far cry from the days when Red Bull was able to take the corner a gear higher than anyone else! It's hard to imagine that the McLaren is giving away any large amount of downforce in the quick stuff.

  • At the chicane both cars looked pretty good, although just as in Jerez it still appears that the Red Bull is less unsettled by the kerbs.

  • Ferrari still doesn't look right. In the transition from the exit of Turn 2 into Turn 3, Alonso was having to work hard on the throttle to get the car to do roughly what he wanted and there were plenty of wobbles that suggest that the car is not giving him enough consistent grip

There's a bit more in there but I feel I've stolen enough as it is <laugh>
 
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James Allen said:
Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull continue to be the team to beat as the F1 testing season reached the half way point today.

I was trackside today in Barcelona, getting a first view of the 2012 cars in anger and sounding out the feeling of teams and engineers up and down the paddock.

On Day two of the second of three tests, the Red Bull carried out a race simulation run in the afternoon. It wasn&#8217;t spectacular, which gave other teams some encouragement, but the car clearly works in all conditions and is fast and well balanced. It picks up where last year&#8217;s car left off.

The fastest time on Day 2 was set in the morning by Force India&#8217;s Nico Hulkenberg, using the super soft compound tyres for the first time, but the Red Bull is acknowledged up and down the pit lane as the form car. &#8220;We&#8217;ll win races this year,&#8221; said one leading figure in the team, somewhat ironically.

However the picture is emerging of how the rest of the teams are shaping up and a good battle appears to be in prospect for the season. McLaren are not ahead of Red Bull, but nor did they expect to be. However they believe that they are likely to be close enough next week, once the definitive Melbourne specification parts are fitted to the cars, to know that they can take Red Bull on this season. It&#8217;s a long season with development again likely to be the key and McLaren look happy enough with where they are.

Ferrari&#8217;s disappointment has been well chronicled, but this is more disappointment that they are not ahead of Red Bull, as they expected they might be with the dramatic step change in direction they have taken. The signs are that they won&#8217;t be challenging for honours at the start of the season, but the car has potential and it&#8217;s really a question of whether they can get it working well soon enough to challenge for the championship. Understandably there is some nervousness about that in the team.

Meanwhile the Mercedes appears at first sight to be a good car with some interesting solutions in the diffuser, the exhausts and other areas, but it does not contain the silver bullet that some were expecting. It is a step forward for the Silver Arrows and should certainly bag some podiums this year, but whether it&#8217;s enough to challenge for the odd race win, it&#8217;s too early to say.

Although it suffered some reliability issues today, the Toro Rosso looks a good package and is likely to score points certainly in the first half of the season. The midfield battle with Force India, Sauber and the rest will be very tight this year, but I fancy Toro Rosso to start out at the front of it.

Lotus&#8217; dramatic setback, with a chassis failure on Day 1 here, has been a major talking point. It appears that they thought they&#8217;d come up with a super new way of making lighter weight monocoque using clever composite techniques, but when the car tested in Barcelona, for some reason, perhaps to do with loadings, perhaps a construction issue, the chassis failed. This was verified when the other chassis was put on the test rig at the factory.

Although the problem area can be repaired, this comes at the worst time in the testing cycle for the team, as they have lost the entire middle test and are only able to claw back one day of the four that will have been lost, which they can add on to next week&#8217;s test. The car had appeared to be going well so it is a major setback.

Elsewhere in the field, the Williams looks a better car than last year&#8217;s, is very reliable with the highest mileage so far, but lacks some pace still.

Vitaly Petrov was out in the Caterham today, but struggled to get comfortable in the car at the start of the day, before getting down to work.
Click to expand...

http://www.jamesallenonf1.com/2012/02/barcelona-day-2-impressions-from-the-trackside/
 
BrightLampShade said:
Maldonado's 1m24.537 is Williams best so far in Barcelona by a fair margin, hopefully they can at least get into the real midfield this year.
Click to expand...

10:54 Maldonado improves to a 1m23.338s to go fastest

Almost 2.5 Secs quicker than days 1 and 2 now. Are they show boating or can they really improve this year.
 
Williams did this last year. They are a publicly listed company now and need to attract some money, bit of a cheap trick to get some money out of some not too bright sponsors I imagine.
 
Hulk yesterday 1m22.608s on Super softs
Maldonado today 1m22.612s on softs - Over 3 seconds faster than day 1 and 2 in Barcelona now, somethings up

Morning update:
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<table class="tableizer-table">
<tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th>P </th><th>Driver </th><th>Team </th><th>Time </th><th>Laps</th></tr> <tr><td>1 </td><td> Maldonado</td><td>Williams</td><td> 1m22.612s</td><td>47</td></tr> <tr><td>2 </td><td> Kobayashi</td><td>Sauber</td><td> 1m23.582s +0.970</td><td>50</td></tr> <tr><td>3 </td><td> Button</td><td>McLaren</td><td> 1m23.950s +1.338</td><td>34</td></tr> <tr><td>4 </td><td> Schumacher</td><td>Mercedes</td><td> 1m24.053s +1.441</td><td>44</td></tr> <tr><td>5 </td><td> Vergne</td><td>Toro Rosso</td><td> 1m24.433s +1.821</td><td>42</td></tr> <tr><td>6 </td><td> Massa</td><td>Ferrari</td><td> 1m24.771s +2.159</td><td>33</td></tr> <tr><td>7 </td><td> Webber</td><td>Red Bull</td><td> 1m24.835s +2.223</td><td>26</td></tr> <tr><td>8 </td><td> Glock</td><td>Marussia</td><td> 1m26.824s +4.212</td><td>39</td></tr> <tr><td>9 </td><td> Petrov</td><td>Caterham</td><td> 1m26.929s +4.317</td><td>14</td></tr> <tr><td>10 </td><td> Di Resta</td><td>Force India</td><td> 1m27.180s +4.568</td><td>20</td></tr></table>
Big spread in times and number of laps so far today.
 
Lunch time!!!<style type="text/css">
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<table class="tableizer-table">
<tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th>P </th><th>Driver </th><th>Team </th><th>Time </th><th>Laps</th></tr> <tr><td>1 </td><td> Maldonado</td><td>Williams</td><td> 1m22.391s</td><td>52</td></tr> <tr><td>2 </td><td> Schumacher</td><td>Mercedes</td><td> 1m23.384s +0.993</td><td>54</td></tr> <tr><td>3 </td><td> Kobayashi</td><td>Sauber</td><td> 1m23.582s +1.191</td><td>59</td></tr> <tr><td>4 </td><td> Button</td><td>McLaren</td><td> 1m23.918s +1.527</td><td>39</td></tr> <tr><td>5 </td><td> Vergne</td><td>Toro Rosso</td><td> 1m24.433s +2.042</td><td>42</td></tr> <tr><td>6 </td><td> Massa</td><td>Ferrari</td><td> 1m24.771s +2.380</td><td>48</td></tr> <tr><td>7 </td><td> Webber</td><td>Red Bull</td><td> 1m24.835s +2.444</td><td>26</td></tr> <tr><td>8 </td><td> Glock</td><td>Marussia</td><td> 1m26.173s +3.782</td><td>51</td></tr> <tr><td>9 </td><td> Petrov</td><td>Caterham</td><td> 1m26.929s +4.538</td><td>23</td></tr> <tr><td>10 </td><td> Di Resta</td><td>Force India</td><td> 1m27.180s +4.789</td><td>20</td></tr></table> Fastest 3 also completed the most amount of laps.
 
Good number of laps covered by Ferrari.

Maldonado's run was surely a qualifying sim - others said Williams were lacking pace.
 
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