2nd Winter test, Barcelona 2013

[DJMORIN]

wow what a car wreck.just got home and saw what i posted from my phone.please forgive me my spelling was awful. two kids fighting and trying to type on the phone anyway i remember seeing a short video that came out hours before the launch of the new car on the f138 post page 16 showing spy shots of the f138 with r/b style side pods and exhaust outlets and this came out before the launch. maybe this is what we will see on thursday. anybody going to montreal?

[Elvis]

What s the dates for the final tests?

Thursday 28 Feb to Sunday 3 March, this week!

[FerrariF60]

Thursday 28 Feb to Sunday 3 March, this week!

who's testing the first 2 days, and who is testing last 2 days for us??

thx

[Tony]

wow what a car wreck.just got home and saw what i posted from my phone.please forgive me my spelling was awful. two kids fighting and trying to type on the phone anyway i remember seeing a short video that came out hours before the launch of the new car on the f138 post page 16 showing spy shots of the f138 with r/b style side pods and exhaust outlets and this came out before the launch. maybe this is what we will see on thursday. anybody going to montreal?

I don't have that far to go

[stefa]

As far as I understood F138 on last week Barcelona test was exactly the same as one in Jerez?! Maybe in forthcoming Barcelona test we will see something new?

[Italian Spirit]

“Red Bull gives you wings, but not cojones”

[anialonso]

Of Course there's point in doing that, no topteam reveal their true pace. Last year Red Bull only ran their B-spec the final two days of testing.
Your assumption that Ferrari is still struggling in slow corners isn't backed up by the facts, first of all this didn't seem to bother him when he did his 1:21.875 sec. we can assume he did this time with not much fuel onboard, so that would make the problem (lack of traction) even bigger, yet it didn't, remember last year when the F2012 had good traction at the beginning of the race, with a full a tank, when the fuel started to dissapear, so did the traction.

Second, take a look at the best sector times from Barcelona testing:

Sector 1: 22.745 – Romain Grosjean
Sector 2: 30.747 – Fernando Alonso
Sector 3: 28.203 – Nico Hulkenberg

Best Possible Laptime: 1:21:695s, so Alonso was about 1.8 tenth away from the perfect lap, and had the best time in sector two, now look at the layout of the circuit



Apart from the chicane (turn 14,15) they're almost identical, for instance turn 5 & 10, turn 4 & 12, turn 9 & 16, there's not much difference between those turns, so why wasn't Alonso fast there also?
I think that Alonso lifted, if he didn't do that he would've set an even faster time than his 1:21:875, and all eyes would be on Ferrari.
They're all downplaying their cars, Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, in Melbourne all the covers come off, and Vettel may hope Newey has produced a car with a "glued to the tarmac rear", or the Ferrari's are going to be all over him.

You have a good point there..But why would Alonso slow only in the last sector in his every lap..In each of his faster laps Alonso was setting purple S1 and S2 and losing it only in S3..that looks a bit weird..If Alonso were to mask the real pace he would have done so by putting more fuel on board..
Another thing is that how would track observers know whether Alonso was lifting deliberately or lifting due to lack of downforce..
I do not mean to dishearten anyone but I still don't think Ferrari are that strong in slow corners..but i am sure Ferrari also know their weak points and we might see some upgrades at the next test hoping to improve our weakest points..

[anialonso]

Observers said Ferrari was good in the slow chicane in Barca.

Thats a bit confusing cause..
At some instant some say we are among the fastest and the very next moment they claim that Ferrari might start the season down on the leading trio..
So whom to believe is a real challenge..
I would really like to keep my hopes down this time..

[SinanOzerS]

Gutierrez says Lotus looking very consistent with the slow corners.

[anakin]

ferrari behind AGAIN??????

http://www.onestopstrategy.com/daily...Gutierrez.html

[stefa]

ferrari behind AGAIN??????

http://www.onestopstrategy.com/daily...Gutierrez.html

Let's wait until Melbourne with rush conclusions...

[vae32]

Last year i said that lotus is a very fast car, even faster than redbull on race trim and the only car can match or faster than them is the f2012 but the problem is our tyres fall off quicker than lotus. What im trying to say is lotus this year don't need to do much to there car, because this years tyres is workin to there advantage..all they need to do is quali up at or closer to the front...even williams will be in the mix. Today i was reading a passage of what Button was saying that this years tyres is easy to understand than last year, the one that worrys me is he said that after 4 laps the times will go down, than i asked myself if say 1 of the ferrari cars got pole would 4 laps is enought to keep them far infront before the next pit stop comparing to the likes of lotus who are easy on there tyres...And i hope our boys got a solution to slow the degradation on the tyres on f138. What we all don't know aswell is as how will the tyres perform on warm or hot places. For rb i wouldn't be surprise if they turn up with a B-spec car featuring a front pull rod system

[Catalan]

who's testing the first 2 days, and who is testing last 2 days for us??

thx

Thursday February 28 MASSA
Friday March 1 ALONSO
Saturday March 2 MASSA
Sunday March 3 ALONSO

Forecast show that rain could hit the test on Day 1 ( Thursday ) and not clear situation for Friday, so, in a worst-case scenario, we might have only Saturday and Sunday to test under dry conditions.

[Rob]

ferrari behind AGAIN??????

http://www.onestopstrategy.com/daily...Gutierrez.html

[DJMORIN]

cmon guys no worries. with the car we had last year and we lost by four we are in great shape this year. a solid base line with a bunch of goodies comming to the car and we have the best driver. we were two seconds off the pace at the first race.i think its going to be around 3 4 tenths if that. we have a solid tech group this year. i think two from mclaren one from merc and one from sauber and one from redbull seems like a all english group again. like the schumi years

[anakin]

my bad.
just read recently, button saying, lotus was also good in winter testing last season.

[mark p]

ferrari behind AGAIN??????

http://www.onestopstrategy.com/daily...Gutierrez.html

People have preconceptions of the order before they even saw this years cars they then search for the small things in testing as a means to back this up. rb won loads last few years and last winter were siad to be the best but they were knowhere near at the start eventually they won through development but based on last winters test you could not say that and people had them as the fastst for australia by ignoring testing and going by past results. this year ferrari will be very close to the top in australi but its a gut feeling i could try and support it by pulling small bits of bews from testing but it has more to do with a feeling same with these articles. 2004 ferrari eere ran close the year before williams mclaren were favourites from pre season 204 based on this then what happened?

[Tobes]

Of Course there's point in doing that, no topteam reveal their true pace. Last year Red Bull only ran their B-spec the final two days of testing.
Your assumption that Ferrari is still struggling in slow corners isn't backed up by the facts, first of all this didn't seem to bother him when he did his 1:21.875 sec. we can assume he did this time with not much fuel onboard, so that would make the problem (lack of traction) even bigger, yet it didn't, remember last year when the F2012 had good traction at the beginning of the race, with a full a tank, when the fuel started to dissapear, so did the traction.

Second, take a look at the best sector times from Barcelona testing:

Sector 1: 22.745 – Romain Grosjean
Sector 2: 30.747 – Fernando Alonso
Sector 3: 28.203 – Nico Hulkenberg

Best Possible Laptime: 1:21:695s, so Alonso was about 1.8 tenth away from the perfect lap, and had the best time in sector two, now look at the layout of the circuit



Apart from the chicane (turn 14,15) they're almost identical, for instance turn 5 & 10, turn 4 & 12, turn 9 & 16, there's not much difference between those turns, so why wasn't Alonso fast there also?
I think that Alonso lifted, if he didn't do that he would've set an even faster time than his 1:21:875, and all eyes would be on Ferrari.
They're all downplaying their cars, Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull, in Melbourne all the covers come off, and Vettel may hope Newey has produced a car with a "glued to the tarmac rear", or the Ferrari's are going to be all over him.

I agree with the majority of your post, of course we don't want to show our hand at this stage, the one thing that occurs to me is you don't take into account the gradients at Barcelona, although the corners you mention appear similar, from turn 13 onto the straight the track decends quite a lot, would I be right in assuming this could be a contributory factor in the difference in the times..?

[Massimo]

I agree with the majority of your post, of course we don't want to show our hand at this stage, the one thing that occurs to me is you don't take into account the gradients at Barcelona, although the corners you mention appear similar, from turn 13 onto the straight the track decends quite a lot, would I be right in assuming this could be a contributory factor in the difference in the times..?

Maybe i'm mistaking, but don't you mean turn 9, which is steep uphill with an downhill exit onto the back straight ? From turn 13 and on, it's second and third gear, with the most traction needed in turn 15 to build up good speed for the pit straight, surely we're not losing that much time in 1 turn?
Some seem to think that the time difference in sector 3 was due to very poor traction out of slow corners, and i find that hard to believe when Alonso was able to do an 1:21:875 on a low fuel run, when traction should be even less, because of the almost empty tank.

[Rob]

Pirelli: Barcelona degradation levels ‘not typical’ 25 Feb 2013

Pirelli are confident that drivers will not experience the unusually high levels of tyre degradation seen in last week’s Barcelona testing at next month’s opening round of the 2013 FIA Formula One World Championship in Australia.

Degradation at the Circuit de Catalunya was such that it prompted speculation that March’s Melbourne race could see twice as many pit stops as in 2012. However, Pirelli insisted that testing conditions in Spain were not representative of what can be expected at Grands Prix this season.

“The teams experienced quite high degradation in Barcelona, and that was really down to the weather,” said Paul Hembery, Pirelli’s motorsport director. “The conditions we had in Barcelona are far from typical of the rest of the season, with much cooler ambient and track temperatures than we would normally race in, and even some rain on the final day. This put the tyres outside of their usual working ranges, which led to problems such as graining.

“The conditions were particularly unsuited to the supersoft tyre, due to the circuit layout and the roughness of the surface in addition to the cold temperatures. Coupled with the fact that teams are still making big set-up adjustments to their new cars and trying out our complete range of our tyres to optimise the package, we saw levels of degradation that are not typical.

“Once we get to Melbourne the tyres should be much more within their intended working range, which will eliminate the unusual amount of degradation that some teams have experienced.”

The teams have one last opportunity to optimise their cars to Pirelli’s 2013 tyres when the final pre-season test - again in Barcelona - begins later this week, running from February 28 to March 3.

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlin...3/2/14288.html

[Jas]

Mclaren have just confirmed the stepping down of their technical director Paddy lowe (off to mercades) is surley good news for us, especially at this time of the year when thos e last min things need to be confirmed. Mercades on the other hand are going for everyone lol! Big money im guessing! As for Pat fry, i trust him to bring us to the next schumi era!

[Rob]

Mclaren have just confirmed the stepping down of their technical director Paddy lowe (off to mercades) is surley good news for us, especially at this time of the year when thos e last min things need to be confirmed. Mercades on the other hand are going for everyone lol! Big money im guessing! As for Pat fry, i trust him to bring us to the next schumi era!

Merc reminds of Toyota. Big names, big name drivers and no results. Well Merc got 1 winso far. But, is Merc going to be to many cooks in the kitchen?

[ferrari1.8t]

Merc reminds of Toyota. Big names, big name drivers and no results. Well Merc got 1 winso far. But, is Merc going to be to many cooks in the kitchen?

Speaking of Merc....

W04 not currently a title contender - Brawn

Ross Brawn does not think the new Mercedes W04 is capable of challenging for the championship in its current state of competitiveness, but believes the gains in performance from last year are real.

Mercedes got its pre-season testing off to a shaky start with reliability issues on the first two days at Jerez, but the car has shown signs of promise since. Brawn said the W04 is on target but admitted that, at the moment, he thinks it will still fall short of the best cars on the 2013 grid.

"We had some new car reliability issues, but it doesn't appear to be anything fundamental," he told the official Formula One website. "The car looks a step forward from where we were last year. The car is doing what all our simulations and modelling suggested that it would do.

"It is not so that we think we've got a championship-winning car right now, but the difference we have anticipated or predicted between the 2012 and 2013 car seems to be real, which is always an encouraging sign."

He said the loss of rear brake pressure and subsequent accident during Lewis Hamilton's first day was not ideal, but that the team had moved on.

"Of course the first couple of days were very disappointing. But what was encouraging in that situation was Lewis's attitude and approach. He was very mature and he understands these complex engineering processes. We explained to him what had happened and he understood and dealt with it.

"For sure, it was not what we wanted to happen, but it was a useful experience for the team and Lewis and vice versa. So yes, Jerez was disappointing and you don't want it to happen - not with a new driver in his first run in the new car."

With the major change in engine regulations from V8s to V6 turbos looming in 2014, teams will have to shift focus at some point this year. But Brawn said the team would still do the "maximum" it could with the 2013 car while focusing on its long-term plan for success.

"One thing is clear: we can't approach 2013 saying 'well Lewis is here for the long term; we said that we're doing 2014 properly so we don't need to worry about 2013.' We worry and are putting a lot of effort in 2013 because we want to do the maximum that we can. I think Lewis has recognized that we've got a medium-term plan and he wants to be part of it."

[khizerk]

Maybe i'm mistaking, but don't you mean turn 9, which is steep uphill with an downhill exit onto the back straight ? From turn 13 and on, it's second and third gear, with the most traction needed in turn 15 to build up good speed for the pit straight, surely we're not losing that much time in 1 turn?
Some seem to think that the time difference in sector 3 was due to very poor traction out of slow corners, and i find that hard to believe when Alonso was able to do an 1:21:875 on a low fuel run, when traction should be even less, because of the almost empty tank.

No he means end of turn 4 and turn 5 descends. Actually the gradient changes through Barcelona (even through 11 and 13) but it is much more pronounced in sector 2. So that could be a factor.

Thing is...if Ferrari struggling in traction out of low speed corners it would show in 5, 10 and 14/15. Assuming 5 and 10 cancel themselves out (even though I think 5 is a faster corner) when using sectors for relativity, the difference comes down to 14/15 which could be showing up

[scuderiafan]

ferrari behind AGAIN??????

http://www.onestopstrategy.com/daily...Gutierrez.html

Well if they were behind last year, and every team has made progress logic dictates Ferrari would be behind those 3. But we do not know yet. If that was Wurz like last year or heidfeld then I'd be worried but this guy is a rookie. Maybe taken with a dashing of salt.

[shamim179]

Circuit de Catalunya (19/02/2013-22/02/2013) Test Analysis

http://formulaoneanalysis.blogspot.co.uk/

[shamim179]

Good analysis. Very good reading.

I personally think that Ferrari warms up its tyres fast hence why it can do such fast lap times on short runs. And once a fast lap time is achieved one could argue that there is little reason to try to do fast consecutive laps when the objective was to do 1 fast lap even if the stint comprises of a few laps. Now that could be the case or it could also be related to Ferrari pushing hard when they do a fast lap so that the drop-off can be analysed. Notice the author points out the tyre degradation problem is ok when we do longer runs. I don't think our tyre degradation is bad. If it was bad then our drop-off times in the longer runs should have been worse than they were.

[Massimo]

No he means end of turn 4 and turn 5 descends. Actually the gradient changes through Barcelona (even through 11 and 13) but it is much more pronounced in sector 2. So that could be a factor.

Thing is...if Ferrari struggling in traction out of low speed corners it would show in 5, 10 and 14/15. Assuming 5 and 10 cancel themselves out (even though I think 5 is a faster corner) when using sectors for relativity, the difference comes down to 14/15 which could be showing up

Ok clear, turn 5 is probably a little faster although they're both(5&10) in second gear, turn 10 is more of a real hairpin.
The traction out of slow corners was the F2012 achilles heel, they have been working specifically on this problem, but all we can do now is speculate, let's hope the updates next week bring out more of the F138's true potential.

[mark p]

I saw it posted on another forum with apparent comments from brawn that renault has to go back on engine mapping for lotus and redbull as they had changed it and found out last thursdays its illegal. they thought clarification in 2012 was only for that year but its nit. their exhausts are apparently designed around the now illegal solution. can anyone find anything on this? If true its a bit stupid we could of had ground effects and argued we thought even though banned in the early 80's its ok to use now.

[vae32]

Maybe i'm mistaking, but don't you mean turn 9, which is steep uphill with an downhill exit onto the back straight ? From turn 13 and on, it's second and third gear, with the most traction needed in turn 15 to build up good speed for the pit straight, surely we're not losing that much time in 1 turn?
Some seem to think that the time difference in sector 3 was due to very poor traction out of slow corners, and i find that hard to believe when Alonso was able to do an 1:21:875 on a low fuel run, when traction should be even less, because of the almost empty tank.

I believe Alonso did this 1.21s because his confident with the down force of the car, just like perrez who also did the same identical times...the good news is the car is fast, we only have to look at massa's time at Jerez to understand. The question we need to find out is how much quicker is mecca to us or is the F138 most importantly is easy on it's tyres, cause i believe this year's championship is not entirely going to be how fast our teams car is or how many times our car will be on pole, because at the end of every races the team's car that looks after there tyres better will win races. That's why we need the whole peckage, car that's easy on tyre's, fast with downforce, drivers, most importantly also is stradegy. Will soon find out on the next test how good our car is on long runs.