Bahrain testing 27 Feb-2 Mar

[Ago]

Hi, I agree that laptimes are not everything however -as of now- both Mercedes drivers, Williams's, McLaren's and FI's Sergio Perez have set better laptimes... 3 of them were more than 1s quicker. On the last testing day,this, to me, is a concern.

[Kristof_F40]

Lotus are in big trouble..

[Majki2111]

Alonso has been seen in jeans and t shirt at the Ferrari hospitality area due to problems with the F14T. Won't be going out for another hour at least he says.

[Forzi]

So you think Williams have already forsaken competing in somewhere like Monza?

No thinking, it's already a fact that they've done it. They'll be doing well on pretty much 80% of season races. Remember RedBull, they've been doing it for the past few years. Good acceleration, running away from the following car early on in the straight, but losing out at the last part of the straight. This is beneficial all around the track except the last parts of straights.

[Kristof_F40]

I think Merc has also gone with lower ratios, remember some journo saying thy were upshifting sooner in turn 2?

[Rosso Corsa]

No thinking, it's already a fact that they've done it. They'll be doing well on pretty much 80% of season races. Remember RedBull, they've been doing it for the past few years. Good acceleration, running away from the following car early on in the straight, but losing out at the last part of the straight. This is beneficial all around the track except the last parts of straights.

But even Red Bull put in longer gear ratios for Monza these past years. I can't believe any team has hit the limiter in 8th gear at Bahrain. Might be wrong, but I don't see any team would have done it to themselves.

[RedRebel40]

I don't think the difference is on the gear ratio's because this year the ratio's are fixed and teams will drive the ratio's for Monza on Monaco because you can't make changes to the gear ratio.

[Forzi]

Gearbox problems for Ferrari it seems.

[27forever]

Fernando 340 km/h. Seems the engine is on max or very close to it, since no one got near it.

but for how long in a lap? none knows!

[Kristof_F40]

Other thought: teams are focussing on "trying to finish the race" but with only 5 engine, we have to finish 4 races with an engine. Chances that that is going to happen is very slim isn't it? So eveybody will get some penalties, so again, I still prefer a car that's good in the race than one that's good in qualy.

[Rosso Corsa]

How do we know from that image that it was Alonso who got 340kph? Isn't that the timing screen for Bottas?

[Forzi]

But even Red Bull put in longer gear ratios for Monza these past years. I can't believe any team has hit the limiter in 8th gear at Bahrain. Might be wrong, but I don't see any team would have done it to themselves.

Still, these fast tracks are rather few. Bahrain S/F line is rather decent example of your usual straight line. They might be losing out in Monza, but they will be wining more time all over the other places, normal length straights and all shorter parts of the track where acceleration is beneficial. In a way what RedBull were doing last year.
Skip to 7:00 on comments for the Williams.

[f1tomi8]

[Forzi]

How do we know from that image that it was Alonso who got 340kph? Isn't that the timing screen for Bottas?

You can see lap count next to the top speed.

[stefa]

I'm not talking about those 2 secs. That would be insane. But believing that we are sanbagging... that's not much better. We always speak about sanbagging, when we are not the fastest. How many times did it work out? And why would they do that this year, with so little time to test? They surely have to try to run the engine to the max to know, what it can handle during quali.

After all this talk about "we are bulding cars, not planes" I would think Ferrari would come with an engine which would be unrivaled. Or "teams with their own engines will have big advantage (or something like that)" I expected Ferrari to use that advantage.

I hope I'm being this negative piece of **** for no reason and somehow I'm missing something.

There is no thing as sandbagging! No! That is useless wasting of VERY limited testing time! That is just an excuse (from fans) when their team is not doing well. It is much easier to say they are fooling the competition than to accept hard and painful truth. This is quite normal as it is in our nature to hope for the best and not to take negative results just like that!
I think (I would like to be proven wrong come first race), that Mercedes is the team to beat, and than other Mercedes powered cars... Where is Ferrari in terms of competitiveness...? I don't know!

[Ste]

How do we know from that image that it was Alonso who got 340kph? Isn't that the timing screen for Bottas?

The purple line denotes the best of anyone. Best sectors, best top speed etc and you can see the 340 came from Alonso, in the box on the left.

[bonzo]

Can someone post Alonso best sector times and on what tire those were set?

[f1tomi8]

[mark p]

So you think Williams have already forsaken competing in somewhere like Monza?

Its a 1 off race nothing similar. If you compromise any race on gears it would be Monza. Long gear ratios also mean better fuel consumption for a given speed though so this must be factored in. No monkey seat today, could they be checking whether the increased df v drag makes them faster over a race? It may be close also taking into account the extra df may mean more consumption but then you may start higher up the grid. So many compromises all over the car to consider.

[Rosso Corsa]

You can see lap count next to the top speed.

The purple line denotes the best of anyone. Best sectors, best top speed etc and you can see the 340 came from Alonso, in the box on the left.

See it now, thanks guys.

[Forzi]

On the bright side, Monza 1-2 wouldn't be hard if you got gear ratios perfectly right for it since it's a rather big advantage.

[f1tomi8]

[27forever]

no prove of that....bu I think we have issues; not to reach peak performance (speed) but to keep and sustain it throughout a flying lap. We may be know where the problem is, but we have not found a fix yet my thoughts go to the recovery systems (cooling and/or electrical) not necessarily on the engine itself. Any comments

[Hornet]

I hope Ferrari is putting on new parts which results in our lack of running

Edit:
For anyone interested, this is the overall fastest lap record and what tires they were using for that lap. Taken from Sky

Fastest laps of the Bahrain Tests so far
1. Felipe Massa, Williams, 1:33.258, Supersoft tyres, Test Two - Day Three.
2. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:33.283, New Soft tyres, Test One - Day Four.
3. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, 1:34.263, New soft tyres, Test One - Day Three.
4. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, 1:34.797, Unknown tyre compound, Test Two – Day Four.
5. Kevin Magnussen, McLaren, 1:34.910, New supersoft tyres, Test One - Day Two.
6. Jenson Button, McLaren, 1:34.957, New soft tyres, Test One - Day Four.
7. Sergio Perez, Force India, 1:35.290, Unknown tyre compound, Test Two – Day One.
8. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 1:35.426, Supersoft tyres, Test Two – Day Three.
9. Fernando Alonso, Ferrari, 1:35.509, Unknown tyre compound, Test Two – Day Four.
10. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1:35.743, Unknown tyre compound, Test Two – Day Two.
11. Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, 1:36.113, Unknown tyre compound, Test Two - Day Three.

[Rosso Corsa]

On the bright side, Monza 1-2 wouldn't be hard if you got gear ratios perfectly right for it since it's a rather big advantage.

With the different engine characteristics, especially with available torque, gear ratios from previous years aren't an ideal comparison. It's possible Fernando's top speeds are more due to good grip (getting the power down) and slippery aero, as opposed to gear ratios.

[f1tomi8]

Very small radiator

[Forzi]

With the different engine characteristics, especially with available torque, gear ratios from previous years aren't an ideal comparison. It's possible Fernando's top speeds are more due to good grip (getting the power down) and slippery aero, as opposed to gear ratios.

Possibly.

Though still, me thinks gear ratios will mean a lot in some tracks and some cars will struggle because of it.

[Kristof_F40]

I hope Ferrari is putting on new parts which results in our lack of running

Edit:
For anyone interested, this is the overall fastest lap record and what tires they were using for that lap. Taken from Sky

There is a tendency for Merc cars to be on top, so you could conclude that the Merc engine is super good. But! if you look at the times of different Merc powerd team and at the tyres, there still is a massive difference between them. So there are a lot more variables. Isn't it possbile that there are a lot of different programs? Remember last year when RBR was also "off the pac"

[shamim179]

That Williams is looking extremely fast. I'm not sure why some people think it's inconceivable that we are slower than the Williams. Remember 2012? We were slower than the Williams at the start and we only managed to turn things around by copying other team's solutions by Barcelona but even then we were still slower than them and also the testing sessions that we utilized in Mugello that we were aggressively pushing for.

We're still seeing flow viz so we're still doing correlation work. We need more testing time than others if we're often going to spend a good proportion of our time just doing this. We also revert back to older spec parts which isn't a sign of confidence. I just hope all this correlation work isn't compromising the rest of our programme too much.

[mirafiori]

Do we know why Button stopped on Track.