2018 pre-season testing thread

[NathanOlder]

10:44 A 1m18.752s for Lewis, fastest of all today! We await to see if the timing provider poops the party.

[Santozini]

Will Buxton is reporting smoke and an acrid smell of burning carbon. There was also oil on the track. Whatever it is, it was ugly.

Definitely doesn't sound good. Such a shame, Alo was doing pretty well up until that point.

So.... was Honda's engine actually crap or is McLaren killing cars with their size zero obsession?

I think it was a bit of both to be honest...

This year McLaren kept the size 0 and changed PU, Honda on the other hand has a bit more space with the TR and seems to have sorted out some key aspects of their previous failures.

[TwanV]

Bit of both I presume, but McLaren are becoming a bit of a laughing stock now in they way they feel they should protect the McLaren brand as I suspect they did with Honda last year.. All I hear are excuses and blame put on parts not made by McLaren Ltd. 2$ bits right.. If I were at Honda I would feel like I had just won the lottery by switching to TR

[max_speed]

Mclaren is seriously in shambles. very poor performance indeed. stil sorting basic issues while others will be switching towards outright performance side and race settings.

[Jambier]

While Mclaren struggle, their future competitor for this year (I assume) is doing quite good.

Sainz have done 66 laps ending with 1m20.042s in medium.
Great stint I think.

[F1Fan2018]

Sky F1

"McLaren say Fernando Alonso's car suffered an oil leak.

The Spaniard has left the garage and is in McLaren's hospitality area."

[johnny comelately]

So Bruce had a daughter Amanda who works for McLaren as brand ambassador apparently, I reckon it is possible she has more ability genetically than Eric and the others put together......

[BrunoH]

i said this before and got smoked here... so its the cooling thats cooking the engine and electronics... they have wayyy to small inlets.

they added a scoop and its still small. Like i said before they need a redesign of engine cover at least.
also fernando must be shouting GP2 team GP2 team... they cant hide behind Honda no more

[Sevach]

Ricciardo and Hamilton on US at the same time doing short runs (the only remaining question is how much fuel they have onboard).

18.9 for Ric, 18.6 for Ham.

[johnny comelately]

crossover thread alert:
Adrian Newey said it all in his book re McLaren in regards to why they are not successful today

[Morteza]

Mclaren now has decided to change the engine after small leak earlier. Will take at least 3 hours till we see Alonso back on track again. #AMuS

[matt_s]

Ricciardo and Hamilton on US at the same time doing short runs (the only remaining question is how much fuel they have onboard).

18.9 for Ric, 18.6 for Ham.

Clever tactic from Merc. Lewis has shaved a very tiny margin off the times he was going on longer stint + medium tyres and now it looks like the teams are well matched.

[TwanV]

ah, just a "small" oil leak, no biggie then.

[Restomaniac]

i said this before and got smoked here... so its the cooling thats cooking the engine and electronics... they have wayyy to small inlets.

they added a scoop and its still small. Like i said before they need a redesign of engine cover at least.
also fernando must be shouting GP2 team GP2 team... they cant hide behind Honda no more

Was the thing you smoked a kipper and were you back for breakfast?

Sorry couldn't resist it.

[Thunder18]

Hartley has stopped on track

edit, just a spin, red flag was out but he's off again