2026 Pre-Season Testing

[mzso]

Can't see a non-mercedes powered car finishing on the podium this year, but hopefully mclaren will be close enough there's at least a little intrigue

FFS with this oracle crap already. Why don't you give the drivers' final scores?

It's the same nonsense when people proclaimed Leclerc as a champion after three races in 2022. He was barely third in the final result (3 points in front of Perez) and 146 points behind, which is almost 6 race wins worth of points...
At least Red Bull and Ferrari seems just as solid. Also there's a good chance AM will pull themselves together during the year. Red Bull when lead by Newey did came back often during the year with updates.

[Badger]

Norris and Verstappen were clearly a step behind the long running that Leclerc did in yesterday’s day session.

Direct comparisons without fuel loads? No use.

[Emag]

Norris and Verstappen were clearly a step behind the long running that Leclerc did in yesterday’s day session.

Leclerc's stints were done with track temps which were >10C lower (temps didn't cross 33.9C for him, while today we were sitting at 45C). Even with that, he still hit relatively bad deg. It's just that his first laps were generally faster than what Max and Lando could do today.

If track temp wasn't enough (which honestly it should be because it makes a huge difference), we have no idea what fuel loads each of them had. So until they go out and make a proper race sim from start to finish, we have no real reference point.

[Frank73]

Norris and Verstappen were clearly a step behind the long running that Leclerc did in yesterday’s day session.

Leclerc's stints were done with track temps which were >10C lower (temps didn't cross 33.9C for him, while today we were sitting at 45C). Even with that, he still hit relatively bad deg. It's just that his first laps were generally faster than what Max and Lando could do today.

If track temp wasn't enough (which honestly it should be because it makes a huge difference), we have no idea what fuel loads each of them had. So until they go out and make a proper race sim from start to finish, we have no real reference point.

But also degradation is strongly influenced by first laps of the stint. If you are not stressing tires from the beginning you are going to increase their life quite a lot.

[Badger]

The only types of runs you can read into are...
- Quali sims.
- Full race sims.
- Low fuel stints that are so fast fuel load doesn't need to be considered.

[DGP123]

The gap between the top teams and the midfield is on the scale of seconds a lap.

Yeah, bit disappointing really. They were saying yesterday it looks like it’s split into three clear leagues. Needed Aston to really get in the mix, but that ain’t happening.

Still fear Merc will blow everyone away in Aus. If that happens, it will be another morgue on here and across the social boards like last year.

[dren]

This was in the middle of a "long" run I think. It looks like McLaren just weren't deploying as much. They're slower in pretty much every straight. Lando's tires were shot towards the end of this stint though.

Mclaren isn't going to have similar top speeds to Red Bull. They can't. They have more downforce for the corners and more drag. What you're seeing is how efficiency and inefficiency propagates. The efficient car spends less time on the straight, so it uses less battery, and it also is able to recover more energy because it isn't consumed by drag. The inefficient car spends more time on straight, uses more energy and recovers less because it is lost to drag.

They run the active aero in the straights, so should be dumping a lot of that drag. I'm not sure how far apart both cars are in active aero mode wrt drag.

[Gillian]

Safety car looked and sound like the fastest car today lol.

[matt_s]

Interesting on the Formula Insights video about Merc only using gears 2-7 and also braking earlier.

Given this doesn't appear to be a strategy employed by all Merc-powered teams, it does make it seem like George was out for a casual Sunday drive.

[F1Sara]

Mercedes powered cars had terrible practice starts again (Russell, Norris). Mercedes PU seems the most dodgy getting away from the grid.

Lando didn't even get away at all while Russell completely lit up the rear tires

Lewis came from 2 grid slots back and overtook him before they crossed the pit exit. Seems like they got work to do.

4 cars at practicestart. Politics

[mzso]

Hm. Tuning in, and the the first thing I see is the AM being rolled back on a cart...

[upsidedowntoast]

1. does anyone have full stint data with average times (not fastest lap)
2. when did kimi get a 1:32 lol

[SoulPancake13]

Both Verstappen and Piastri have had really weird third stint simulations. Verstappen is like a full second slow, but Piastri has also experienced almost 2 seconds of deg

[nitrotech]

[upsidedowntoast]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HBiBnnLXQAA ... me=900x900

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HBiD4C2WYAA ... me=900x900

thanks, any view of the merc race sim?
actually is there a site where i can view the full sim data? (don't have an x and f1-data only shows fastest laps for me)