WhiteBlue wrote:Ross Brawn wrote:The car we have at the first test won't be the final definition of the car. We have a major upgrade before Bahrain. That is something that perhaps will be common, but what we launch in Valencia will be the chassis and fundamentals for 2010, but with a new aerodynamic package in time for Bahrain.
Brawn mentioned in an Autosport interview today that all leading teams are expected to keep their final aero secret until shortly before the Bahrain race. Whitmarsh said something very similar. I remember that this must have been ongoing quite often in the past years. What they cannot delay introducing is the diffusor.
Id expect more or less every team that makes the first test to do so, with exeption of all the new teams, Red Bull and Force India will be a safe assumption that it could go either way for them, but id bet on the side of a update pre Bahrain for them.
Id expect that the new teams will probably be wanting to wait till arround Barcelona for their first improvements just to get a good solid baseline of data for their cars, then move on from there.
Lotus will be the funny one, as per Gascgoynes prefrence, he will make small incremental gains every race or two, with a major B-Spec coming arround round 10-12 and them gaining what looks like 0.5-0.7 a lap, but in real terms its probably arround 0.3 a lap once everything shakes out after the first few races with his method of design implementation. His B-Spec will usually get one or two small revisions after that, then its on to the new car.
I cannot wait till Thursday and Friday for Ferarri and McLaren. And Sunday/Monday for the batch of Sauber, Renault, Williams, Toro Roso and Mercedes.
The one thing i hope is that Mercedes will have their logo on the Force India and that Ferarri have their prancing horse on the Sauber and Toro Rosso engine covers. To me they are missing out on good marketing exposure that way.
Way my callender is looking at current:
Ferarri 281: January 28th - Mugello, Italy
McLaren MP4/25: January 29th - Woking, UK
Sauber C29: January 31st - Valencia, Spain
Renault R30: January 31st - Valencia, Spain
Mercedes W01: 1st Febuary - Valencia, Spain
Toro Rosso STR5: 1st Febuary - Valencia, Spain
Williams FW32: 1st Febuary - Valencia, Spain
Force India VJM/03: Febuary 10th - Jerez, Spain
Red Bull RB6: Febuary 10th - Jerez, Spain
Virgin VR-01: Febuary 10th - Jerez, Spain (UK car shakedown 4th Febuary)
Lotus TBA: TBA - TBA
Campos Meta TBA: TBA - TBA
USF1 Type 1: Early Febuary - Barber Motorsport Park, Alabama, USA (Shakedown)
BOLD = New teams.
BOLD & ITALICS = Old teams under new management.
Brawn GP = Mercedes GP PETRONAS
BMW Sauber = Sauber
Renault = Renault (Under new management as 80% of the teams shares were bought by Genii Capital led by the founder of Skype, Gerard Lopez)