Bahrain testing 27 Feb-2 Mar

[bondilad]

Didn't alonso set a time of 1.35.634 on soft yesterday. Tomorrow we should get a clearer idea of the pecking order. So we are clearly sandbagging.

[mizf1]

What tyres did Marussia set their best time on, Super sorts or softs?

[OSS EL BOSS]

I do hope Alonso can bridge whatever gap there is between Ferrari and the Merc powered cars. Alonso did say we need to find more pace, so I think the team to a certain extend knows we're not the fastest at the moment.

Do I believe we're 2 sec behind? Of course not. But I don't think we'll emerge as the fastest car in terms of pace.

Of course, race is always a different thing.

I am just worried about if it is indeed the power unit making the difference, because we can improve the car but we can't improve the performance of the PU anymore during this season.

[Ste]

We are NOT 2 seconds off the pace. By that logic McLaren are too and it's Mercedes vs Williams. Not gonna happen...

[FerrariF60]

If we are sandbagging are we really sandbagging by 2 secs or more compared to Williams and Mercedes assuming they aren't sandbagging? The comparison between Marussia and Ferrari suggests that we are sandbagging but I'm not convinced that we are sandbagging to the extent that we are hiding 2-3 secs or more. I really hope we are sandbagging BIG time!

yup, 100% sandbagging....ferrari are playing their hand differently this year, putting up "smoke screens" to confuse the opponents...

we're gonna see teh true speed of our DEMON car coming soon...more precisely in EXACTLY TWO WEEKS...in quali time

[f1tomi8]

Keep calm! :)
Lorenzo De Luca ‏@LorenzoDL83 3 p
#Ferrari didn't used all ERS power during long runs and lap times.
I hope it's true...

[Nova]

Something many are forgetting..fastest laps will not win a race this year..not with the fuel restrictions we have, no way. U cannot run these engines given the amount of fuel allowed. So test for reliability and constant lap times or see who is fastest at a test in the desert? I dont give a hoot who is fastest at tests...I want to see Ferrari able to complete races and do so with enough fuel in the tank to crank it up at the final stint of races. We have been reliable, times are up there, we have 2 of the top drivers in the world and we are Ferrari. I think we gonna do good.

[FerrariF60]

Lets be optimistic.
Come 16th March 7 & 14 will royally kick some Merc butt !

couldn't have said it any better myself MATE...

cheers and cheer up guys, Ferrari know what they're doing

[FerrariF60]

Something many are forgetting..fastest laps will not win a race this year..not with the fuel restrictions we have, no way. U cannot run these engines given the amount of fuel allowed. So test for reliability and constant lap times or see who is fastest at a test in the desert? I dont give a hoot who is fastest at tests...I want to see Ferrari able to complete races and do so with enough fuel in the tank to crank it up at the final stint of races. We have been reliable, times are up there, we have 2 of the top drivers in the world and we are Ferrari. I think we gonna do good.

what do i say to that??? AMEN!!!!

[mizf1]

Also let's not forget Kimi would not have had enough time to fine tune the car for a quali run due to his massive workload in the afternoon.

[Bubbles]

yup, 100% sandbagging....ferrari are playing their hand differently this year, putting up "smoke screens" to confuse the opponents...

we're gonna see teh true speed of our DEMON car coming soon...more precisely in EXACTLY TWO WEEKS...in quali time

With so many new systems on the cars this year, I doubt anybody has time for sandbagging. Also, the day Tombazis designs a DEMON car with his own hands will be the day pigs fly.

Let's hope the car can work with the tires, because if Kimi did fast runs today, then it might indicate the car doesn't work well with the soft tires. I wouldn't be surprised, really. For five years now Ferrari's cars have been rubbish on their tires, at least on one of them.

[ferrari4life]

Something many are forgetting..fastest laps will not win a race this year..not with the fuel restrictions we have, no way. U cannot run these engines given the amount of fuel allowed. So test for reliability and constant lap times or see who is fastest at a test in the desert? I dont give a hoot who is fastest at tests...I want to see Ferrari able to complete races and do so with enough fuel in the tank to crank it up at the final stint of races. We have been reliable, times are up there, we have 2 of the top drivers in the world and we are Ferrari. I think we gonna do good.

well put

[Nero Horse]

This 2 second gap certainly doesn't mean anything. For example yesterday Hamilton was 3,4 seconds behind our time and today the Merc is 2 secs. in front again. Teams are simply concentrating on their own testing program and lap times are irrelevant at this point. We will find out the real pace of all the teams only in Australia and not in Bahrain testing. Calm down people!

[OSS EL BOSS]

Keep calm! :)
Lorenzo De Luca ‏@LorenzoDL83 3 p
#Ferrari didn't used all ERS power during long runs and lap times

I hope it's true because ERS makes a huge diffence in terms of laptime.
I remember last year at some tracks KERS was making a difference of 0.5s in laptime and we know it was just an 80 hp boost just for 6 seconds.

[FerrariF60]

With so many new systems on the cars this year, I doubt anybody has time for sandbagging. Also, the day Tombazis designs a DEMON car with his own hands will be the day pigs fly.

Let's hope the car can work with the tires, because if Kimi did fast runs today, then it might indicate the car doesn't work well with the soft tires. I wouldn't be surprised, really. For five years now Ferrari's cars have been rubbish on their tires, at least on one of them.

nu iuta ca nu numai tombazis has his say in this....mai este si james allison si pat fry

[f1tomi8]

I hope it's true because ERS makes a huge diffence in terms of laptime.
I remember last year at some tracks KERS was making a difference of 0.5s in laptime and we know it was just an 80 hp boost just for 6 seconds.

Yep,I hope also...

[Forzi]

We are NOT 2 seconds off the pace. By that logic McLaren are too and it's Mercedes vs Williams. Not gonna happen...

Would think no one could dear saying that we're 2 secs off. We didn't do a quali run, but still the gap is big. Might not be 2 secs, but 0,6 secs or lesser. STILL, so far from what we're hearing from the track, we don't seem to be the leading team. If Fernando and Kimi, by saying that we need to find some pace, meant we're probably behind Mercedes, then after today it might be so that we're behind Williams also.

If it really is the worst case scenario, with us being behind by 1 sec or so, me thinks we will see it tonight or tomorrow in the comments from the team. These kind of things surface rather quickly. Should wait for what Kimi has to say.

But today was a blow to my confidence of the team being in fight of victory in Melbourne. It was Kimi's last day in the car and to see us not doing a run at least close to a quali one (those two seconds off pace say that we were running around with close to half a tank of fuel most of the time) is a bit odd. We've done it for the last few years.

For now, i guess all we can do is wait. Even if we'll struggle, the season is long.

[Bubbles]

nu iuta ca nu numai tombazis has his say in this....mai este si james allison si pat fry

Well, the chief designer designs the car and comes up with ideas about internal packaging, aerodynamics, he's the architect of the car. The tech director oversees the project, distributes resources to the parts he feels are worthwhile, etc. - a manager with deep tech knowledge, the stuff the team principal can't handle.

So Ferrari can hire a new tech director every year, as long as the chief designer stays in place, the cars are going to have the same overall characteristics. Especially in the field of F1 where teams tend to be conservative with their design changes. You get a bad design in, it sticks for the next ten years, and we're half-way there.

[shamim179]

What bothers me is what is the purpose of sandbagging like this in our final test? We have to test all the systems to their extremes to see if they work or not and bring the expected levels of performance and not waste time playing games with others. We should focus on ourselves instead of wasting precious time deceiving others. If our car is working reliably when the ERS is not running at the maximum allowed limit then that's no good - we need to know how we do when it is. It may uncover problems that we can then rectify. Are we being too confident here?

My gut feeling here is because Kimi has missed out on a fair bit of mileage compared to Alonso and not to forget no race sim and it's his last day, the team did not want to take extra risks that could disrupt his programme by pushing the car to it's limit.

[RedPassion]

Well, the chief designer designs the car and comes up with ideas about internal packaging, aerodynamics, he's the architect of the car. The tech director oversees the project, distributes resources to the parts he feels are worthwhile, etc. - a manager with deep tech knowledge, the stuff the team principal can't handle.

So Ferrari can hire a new tech director every year, as long as the chief designer stays in place, the cars are going to have the same overall characteristics. Especially in the field of F1 where teams tend to be conservative with their design changes. You get a bad design in, it sticks for the next ten years, and we're half-way there.

I think Ferrari have finally the right people at the right places,Tombazis is fine.

[Bubbles]

I think Ferrari have finally the right people at the right places,Tombazis is fine.

Domenicali is fine, too.

We'll be cheering for these two (SD & NT) at the end of the year, I'm sure of it! They will bring glory to Ferrari and its fans. I mean, this engine change is just the thing that would bring the team back to total domination - didn't Stefano say that until last year?

I'm only interested if the car works with the tires. If not, game over.

[fronaldo]

Keep calm! :)
Lorenzo De Luca ‏@LorenzoDL83 3 p
#Ferrari didn't used all ERS power during long runs and lap times

Who is he and how reliable is this info?

[Nero Horse]

Alonso

One thing’s for sure: Ferrari has really done a great job and I’m sure that we will be competitive. I can’t say if we will be at the front or behind someone else but we will definitely be up there at the top among the best.

THIS^ is all I need to know and nothing else matters. Bring on the first race!

[bonzo]

Domenicali is fine, too.

We'll be cheering for these two (SD & NT) at the end of the year, I'm sure of it! They will bring glory to Ferrari and its fans. I mean, this engine change is just the thing that would bring the team back to total domination - didn't Stefano say that ?

I'm only interested if the car works with the tires. If not, game over.

Stefano has been saying many things for many years, remember

[bondilad]

Rosberg's fastest time of 1.33.283 was set on soft tyres at the first bahrain test. So he could have gone much faster than what he did today. I doubt williams is ahead of us but it looks like Merc is. Hope to see some really quick times from alonso tomorrow.

[Jose-Lorca Fan]

I'm afraid this is all the car is capable of. Time to draw the curtains and concentrate on 2015.
PS: The team went back to testing the old rear wing again, this isn't a positive sign as they can't blame the wind-tunnel anymore.

[pluto]

Why would we be sand bagging? Things don't look good. If we are well off the pace at Melbourne, Stefano must resign along with Fry and Tombazis, as 5 years of failure can no longer be tolerated. Alonso will also be gone and Kimi will just retire. The whole team could literally sink. I don't understand how they can struggle so much to build a fast car.

[Nero Horse]

I'm afraid this is all the car is capable of. Time to draw the curtains and concentrate on 2015.
PS: The team went back to testing the old rear wing again, this isn't a positive sign as they can't blame the wind-tunnel anymore.

Yes, you're right, let's just pack things up and not even race this season...pfff

You doom and gloom people are so hilarious.

Fortunately this kind of defeatist attitude is not part of the Ferrari team.

[Ste]

I'm afraid this is all the car is capable of. Time to draw the curtains and concentrate on 2015.

[f1tomi8]

#Raikkonen "I was hoping to do more laps, but this wasn't an easy day"