2023 Aston Martin | Aramco | Cognizant F1 Team

[Bisonas]

High degradation was my assumption. yes.
I expected Sainz to do 15-20 laps on the C2 and he did 8 with clear signs of degradation.
I remind you that all pit stops where in and out, fast pit stops changing tires only.
When they have so comparable first stints, and both do fast pit stops for tires only, i assume they are on race sim.
It's the logical assumption. C2 Sainz stint looked like high degradation for me. For you maybe it looked normal. its ok.
There are 1000 possible reasons why they may aborted the sim and that C2 stint looks very weird in did. I am not in their garage to know what happened. From the times (fuel load) and the fast pit stops though i do assume they started it as a race sim.

Dropping one second in lap time already in the fourth lap on C2s can’t be a race sim. No matter the car, no matter the driver, no matter the track.

For what ever reason that second was dropped, and for what ever reason the C2 and C1 stints where cut short, it doesn't mean they didn't started it as a race sim. Fuel loads and fast pit stops for only changing tires suggest it started as a race sim.
Some people may think those 3 stints where executed as planned and some (like me) may think it was a race sim cut short for what ever reason. For me, watching lap by lap on live timing both Alonso and Sainz it looked like a race sim cut short. But this is the AM thread and i already feel that we are over debating what ferrari did.

[JPower]

Dropping one second in lap time already in the fourth lap on C2s can’t be a race sim. No matter the car, no matter the driver, no matter the track.

The hype train has left the station snd there’s no amount of logic to stop it.

[Bisonas]

Dropping one second in lap time already in the fourth lap on C2s can’t be a race sim. No matter the car, no matter the driver, no matter the track.

The hype train has left the station snd there’s no amount of logic to stop it.

Nothing to do with Hype. No one suggested AM is faster than Ferrari.
Yes i suggested that AM had lower Degradation than Ferrari which is understandable considering the RW situation with Ferrari. I also suggested that Alonso race sim was very good. I also suggested that Ferrari started a race sim and cut it short, while explaining the reasons why i believe it started as a race sim.
Now for people that may feel closer and more supportive to Ferrari, rushing here to defend ferrari, like everything went smoothly, and everything was run as planned, ehm. ok. Obviously some (red) people are in denial.

Maybe the "The hype train has left the station and there’s no amount of logic to stop it" applies better to Ferrari fans thinking they will win the championship this year rather than AM fans thinking they will be best of the rest this year, ahead of the middlefield and hopefully not miles away from Mercedes.

[JPower]

Nothing to do with Hype. No one suggested AM is faster than Ferrari.
Yes i suggested that AM had lower Degradation than Ferrari which is understandable considering the RW situation with Ferrari. I also suggested that Alonso race sim was very good. I also suggested that Ferrari started a race sim and cut it short, while explaining the reasons why i believe it started as a race sim.
Now for people that may feel closer and more supportive to Ferrari, rushing here to defend ferrari, like everything went smoothly, and everything was run as planned, ehm. ok. Obviously some (red) people are in denial.

You suggested Ferrari cut their race sim short because of "very very high degradation". That's what I brought issue with. It was a ridiculous suggestion. Another person rightly said that it wasn't a true race sim at all and not worth the comparison to the Alonso sim.

Outside of that, nothing else was being inferred outside of the story you've created around the test day.

Maybe the "The hype train has left the station and there’s no amount of logic to stop it" applies better to Ferrari fans thinking they will win the championship this year rather than AM fans thinking they will be best of the rest this year, ahead of the middlefield and hopefully not miles away from Mercedes.

Who said anything about championship standings?

[NAPI10]

Ted thinks AM is 3rd fastest & close to Ferrari at the moment -

[Bisonas]

Nothing to do with Hype. No one suggested AM is faster than Ferrari.
Yes i suggested that AM had lower Degradation than Ferrari which is understandable considering the RW situation with Ferrari. I also suggested that Alonso race sim was very good. I also suggested that Ferrari started a race sim and cut it short, while explaining the reasons why i believe it started as a race sim.
Now for people that may feel closer and more supportive to Ferrari, rushing here to defend ferrari, like everything went smoothly, and everything was run as planned, ehm. ok. Obviously some (red) people are in denial.

You suggested Ferrari cut their race sim short because of "very very high degradation". That's what I brought issue with. It was a ridiculous suggestion. Another person rightly said that it wasn't a true race sim at all and not worth the comparison to the Alonso sim.

Outside of that, nothing else was being inferred outside of the story you've created around the test day.

Maybe the "The hype train has left the station and there’s no amount of logic to stop it" applies better to Ferrari fans thinking they will win the championship this year rather than AM fans thinking they will be best of the rest this year, ahead of the middlefield and hopefully not miles away from Mercedes.

Who said anything about championship standings?

I suggested it was a race sim cut short, and that it looked to me that maybe they saw very high degradation signs (and realized that a race sim with that RW was kinda pointless). A suggestion is not a fact. I said there could be 1000 reason for cutting their race sim short. Many factors to choose from.

Now you suggested that it was never a race sim, and all runned as planned in order to change their floor and have another go before the end.

After their C3 stint times and fuel load, and after fast (changing tires only) pitstops, you are free to suggest to us what do you make of their C2 and C1 stint. Especially their C2 stint. All good there?

EDIT: maybe with that RW at that time of the day (lower temps), they couldn't bring the harder C2 and C1 tires inside an optimal window. Couldn't put enough heat on them. They tried, but they just couldn't. They lacked the rear downforce and the balance to make the harder tires work correctly. Especially at night.

You came here defending Ferrari saying those stints are uncorrelated while 1st. they where same time of the day and 2nd. from the times we assume they had similar fuel loads at the time. We assume that because they had a very comparable first stint in the C3 and both did fast pitstops for only changing tires.

RW aside, until Ferrari cut short their second stint, the stints where pretty much comparable yea.
And yes i do believe it was a race sim cut short for what ever the reason.

[The Prodigy]

Ted thinks AM is 3rd fastest & close to Ferrari at the moment -

A lot of people will be very disappointed next weekend here in this thread.

Aston Martin will be fighting for 4th/5th place this season. Don’t underestimate Alpine and McLaren…

[xReVo]

Bisonas simply made a (useful) comparison between Sainz and Alonso shooting at the same time. Surely Alonso was on fuel for the race, Sainz we don't know but this makes us understand that Alonso was on full fuel and was setting crazy times comparing them with Sainz's.

[Bisonas]

Ted thinks AM is 3rd fastest & close to Ferrari at the moment -

A lot of people will be very disappointed next weekend here in this thread.

Aston Martin will be fighting for 4th/5th place this season. Don’t underestimate Alpine and McLaren…

I expect Alonso to be best of the rest next week on race pace. Maybe not in qualifying, but on race pace, from what i saw, i will be really surprised if Alonso doesn't end up best of the rest at least (on an normal race without issues).
From then on we will see. One race at the time. The tracks coming up are quite different. We have to see the cars running on different layouts to have a more complete view of the dynamic of each team.
But for Bahrain, Alonso and AM really looked fired up for best of the rest position.
That was my take after testing.
It's just testing we know that, but that doesn't forbid us to make some conclusions of our own.

[LM10]

High degradation was my assumption. yes.
I expected Sainz to do 15-20 laps on the C2 and he did 8 with clear signs of degradation.
I remind you that all pit stops where in and out, fast pit stops changing tires only.
When they have so comparable first stints, and both do fast pit stops for tires only, i assume they are on race sim.
It's the logical assumption. C2 Sainz stint looked like high degradation for me. For you maybe it looked normal. its ok.
There are 1000 possible reasons why they may aborted the sim and that C2 stint looks very weird in did. I am not in their garage to know what happened. From the times (fuel load) and the fast pit stops though i do assume they started it as a race sim.

Dropping one second in lap time already in the fourth lap on C2s can’t be a race sim. No matter the car, no matter the driver, no matter the track.

For what ever reason that second was dropped, and for what ever reason the C2 and C1 stints where cut short, it doesn't mean they didn't started it as a race sim. Fuel loads and fast pit stops for only changing tires suggest it started as a race sim.
Some people may think those 3 stints where executed as planned and some (like me) may think it was a race sim cut short for what ever reason. For me, watching lap by lap on live timing both Alonso and Sainz it looked like a race sim cut short. But this is the AM thread and i already feel that we are over debating what ferrari did.

Ok, let us suppose that it was a race sim which then was cut short on C2 and C1 in case of Sainz. Then there is one stint left which seems to have been completed, the one on C3. The only reasonable thing for us to do would be to compare the C3 stint of Alonso to the C3 stint of Sainz. Averaging both stints, we get 39.0 over 14 laps for Alonso and 38.7 over 16 laps for Sainz (as a side note, I ignored the last laps each and also the first lap of Sainz which obviously was the outlap).

In conclusion, we have a faster Sainz with an unoptimized setup with least amount of rear wing and beam wing of all cars. Have I missed something?

[jumpingfish]

Dropping one second in lap time already in the fourth lap on C2s can’t be a race sim. No matter the car, no matter the driver, no matter the track.

For what ever reason that second was dropped, and for what ever reason the C2 and C1 stints where cut short, it doesn't mean they didn't started it as a race sim. Fuel loads and fast pit stops for only changing tires suggest it started as a race sim.
Some people may think those 3 stints where executed as planned and some (like me) may think it was a race sim cut short for what ever reason. For me, watching lap by lap on live timing both Alonso and Sainz it looked like a race sim cut short. But this is the AM thread and i already feel that we are over debating what ferrari did.

Ok, let us suppose that it was a race sim which then was cut short on C2 and C1 in case of Sainz. Then there is one stint left which seems to have been completed, the one on C3. The only reasonable thing for us to do would be to compare the C3 stint of Alonso to the C3 stint of Sainz. Averaging both stints, we get 39.0 over 14 laps for Alonso and 38.7 over 16 laps for Sainz (as a side note, I ignored the last laps each and also the first lap of Sainz which obviously was the outlap).

In conclusion, we have a faster Sainz with an unoptimized setup with least amount of rear wing and beam wing of all cars. Have I missed something?

I see the difference between Sainz and Alonso is how do they run during C3 stint. Sainz's final laps are slower and Alonso's are faster. So maybe Fernando tried to save tyres at the beginning and then be able to push, while Carlos pushed immediately and faced the degradation. Alonso L1 1:39.770, L14 1:38.131, Sainz L1 1:38.500 L16 1:39.273

[Bisonas]

Dropping one second in lap time already in the fourth lap on C2s can’t be a race sim. No matter the car, no matter the driver, no matter the track.

For what ever reason that second was dropped, and for what ever reason the C2 and C1 stints where cut short, it doesn't mean they didn't started it as a race sim. Fuel loads and fast pit stops for only changing tires suggest it started as a race sim.
Some people may think those 3 stints where executed as planned and some (like me) may think it was a race sim cut short for what ever reason. For me, watching lap by lap on live timing both Alonso and Sainz it looked like a race sim cut short. But this is the AM thread and i already feel that we are over debating what ferrari did.

Ok, let us suppose that it was a race sim which then was cut short on C2 and C1 in case of Sainz. Then there is one stint left which seems to have been completed, the one on C3. The only reasonable thing for us to do would be to compare the C3 stint of Alonso to the C3 stint of Sainz. Averaging both stints, we get 39.0 over 14 laps for Alonso and 38.7 over 16 laps for Sainz (as a side note, I ignored the last laps each and also the first lap of Sainz which obviously was the outlap).

In conclusion, we have a faster Sainz with an unoptimized setup with least amount of rear wing and beam wing of all cars. Have I missed something?

Never said Alonso was faster. I said the stints where comparable and that they both started a race sim.
Other than that yes. They treated the C3 tire differently. Alonso started conservatively and progressively kept lowering his delta.
Sainz started more aggressively and progressively started to lose time.
At the end of the stint Alonso had a better conditioned tire, meaning he could extend if he had to or wanted to.

Another thing that you may don't know, is that Alonso started the stint on a 3 lap old C3 which previously had done an out lap , a push lap and an in lap on it. He did 16 laps on that stint brining the tire to a total of 19 laps.
Sainz started the stint with a 1 lap old C3 which had only done an out/in lap. He did 18 laps on it bringing the total to 19 laps as well. So Sainz started the stint with the better conditioned tire and ended the stint with the worst conditioned tire.

I am just stating the facts. i am not assuming Alonso will be faster than sainz next week.
Ferrari RW, Balance and setup aside, I am just stating what i saw.

[Mansell89]

As I’ve mentioned earlier in the thread- I’m a McLaren fan looking on with admiration - from what I’ve seen I’d be absolutely staggered if McLaren are anywhere close to Aston Martin at the season opener, and unless McLaren have Bahrain-specific issues and suddenly improve at the different circuit types, they won’t get close until the first upgrade.

The Aston looks really compliant and a smooth ride- race pace looked very solid and consistent and whilst we can’t be sure they’d beat Ferrari- and I expect Ferrari to be very good next weekend- I do think this Aston car might actually be very good and could give Mercedes a problem for the first two races.

I don’t think people have realised yet that they are morphing into a top team. Dan Fallows is an absolute top talent. They’ve got the backing, they’ve got great personnel, and facilities are also on the way.

You have to put last years car out of your mind- this is very, very different.

I want to see teams disrupting the big three so I’m cheering on - the more closely the teams are matched, the better.


QQ- Alonso mentioned in his interview yesterday that there was still hopefully much more to come and that they didn’t test everything- was he referencing low fuel do you think? IF- and it’s a big IF- he was, then they may be better than even first thought.

Intriguing.

[organic]

When talking about more to come from the car he mentioned extracting it over the course of the next few races, so I think it was likely more to do with finding an even sweeter spot with the setup and unlocking performance through understanding

Fernando knows every team has fuel to take out relative to testing

[Mansell89]

When talking about more to come from the car he mentioned extracting it over the course of the next few races, so I think it was likely more to do with finding an even sweeter spot with the setup and unlocking performance through understanding

Fernando knows every team has fuel to take out relative to testing

Thanks Organic

Any initial observations on Astons relative performance for high speed/low speed etc and whether Bahrain would be a positive outlier for any reason, versus other circuits to come?