2018 pre-season testing thread

[GoranF1]

The hybrid era seems to have suited Mercedes the most. The experience on that topic which they had started to gain already years before 2014 might have helped them most among the teams. Also efficient engines are something Mercedes is known for generally. I don't know if this makes sense though, just some amateurish thoughts.

How Mercedes made F1’s best hybrid engine

Mercedes had no experience with a turbo – after all, the last time they were used in F1 pre-dated the team – so they relied on knowledge from elsewhere in the Daimler company. Although Mercedes uses turbos in its road cars, it was Daimler’s truck division that proved the most useful to Cowell and his team: the huge amounts of power involved in the F1 engine meant they were a better fit.

Indeed. Mercedes trucks run forever and have tons of power. Thinking about it Ferrari, Renault and Honda don't have the sheer amount long term experience of dealing with the hugely powerful turbo engines that Mercedes do.

I think in 10 or 15 years someone will write a book, and then we will know what is the real reason behind Mercedes domination, legal or ilegal.

[Restomaniac]

How Mercedes made F1’s best hybrid engine

Indeed. Mercedes trucks run forever and have tons of power. Thinking about it Ferrari, Renault and Honda don't have the sheer amount long term experience of dealing with the hugely powerful turbo engines that Mercedes do.

I think in 10 or 15 years someone will write a book, and then we will know what is the real reason behind Mercedes domination, legal or ilegal.

That would be a very interesting read.

[GoranF1]

Auto-Motor-und-Sport's (AMuS) analysis of Winter Testing is in, and clears up a little why perhaps Ferrari could be finding themselves in position 3.

https://www.auto-motor-und-sport.de/for ... ite-woche/

Translation by me:

We analyzed the two testing weeks in Barcelona and come to the following conclusion:

1.) Mercedes
2.) Red Bull-Renault
3.) Ferrari
4.) HaasF1-Ferrari
5.) Renault
6.) Toro Rosso-Honda
7.) McLaren-Renault
8.) Force India-Mercedes
9.) Williams-Mercedes
10.) Sauber-Ferrari

Mercedes
Mercedes didn't attempt any qualy runs. They only stood at the top of the timesheets on day 4. The championship wining team didn't even bring hyperssoft tires to the winter-test. And the Mercedes never did any low fuel runs. In the standings over the 8 winter testing days, the best times by Hamilton and Bottas were for rank 8 and 10. Hamilton was with a timed-best of 1:18.400 1.3 seconds slower than the best time Ferrari did. Despite this, it looks like Mercedes will be heading to Melbourne as clear favorites. The race simulations are the true indicator of performance and here Bottas and Hamilton were around a second per lap quicker than their competitors under similar conditions.

Bottes tried to downplay expectations a little: "We are surely not a second quicker than the rest. We completed our testing program already on day 7, so day 8 was a bonus for us. It wouldn't have made any sense to compete for best-times. We know what our car is capable of.". Lewis explained that he couldn't find the erratic behaviour from last years car. "But we are still getting to learn the traits of this new car. Things worked great in Barcelona, but it doesn't have to mean this will apply to other tracks too".

The minor worry that the drivers and engineers will take from Barcelona is the blistering of the rear tires. Bottas said: "We didn't solve the problem, but we were able to minimise it. We believe that the others will have had similar problems when attacking with these softer tires on this circuit."


Red-Bull
Similar like Mercedes, Redbull didn't join in with competing for best times. Despite this, we see last years 3rd best team at this time as the team in position 2. GPS-Data shows that the RB14 is as quick as the Mercedes in the corners. It all depends now how much power Renault can still unleash with their engine. For the last two test-days, Renault unlocked some performance of their engine with another identical improvement expected for Melbourne, if Renault deems it reliable enough. The turbo-damage that McLaren suffered on the last day of testing could mean that this improvement may be delayed to a later point though.

RedBull chief Helmut Marko believes: "We have the better chassis than Mercedes. The difference lies in the engine". Technical-chief Adrian Newey suspects that the competition still burns way more oil than Renault. "Our oil usage over 100km is at 0.1l. Both Mercedes and Ferrari use the limit at 0.6l." How big the gap is to the best is difficult to assess. Some seem to think between 3 and 5 tenths per lap. In the long runs (race sim), RedBull were driving at a similar pace to Ferrari, which would be quite a bit off what Mercedes was showing too. Renault was also saving fuel. More than Mercedes but less than Ferrari. The problem could reoccur in Melbourne.


Ferrari
Ferrari achieved the best time on 4 testing days. Sebastian Vettel marked the best time with a 1:17.182. Ferrari also worked flawless and did 849 laps without any big issues. Despite all this, there was little reason to be euphoric. Vettels best time is not worth much if Mercedes had attempted to break it. We suspect that even RedBull could have broken it. Even Ferrari customer Haas was only 2 tenths slower. That isn't enough if you want to be world champions. Vettel concluded the two weeks of testing with "There are still some riddles that we need to understand". The wording is rather worrying, as it would imply they still need to understand some issues and are poking around in the dark.

According to GPS-data, the Ferrari are especially losing time in the corners. Track side observers saw that the Ferrari is inclined to lock up under breaking and that the drivers often used strange driving lines. Ex-driver Pedro de la Rosa concluded after observing T1, T2 and T3 that "Mercedes and RedBull corner very well and more stable than the Ferrari". But what could be the issue with the SF71H? Is it the 7cm longer wheelbase? The HaasF1 has that too. Maybe Ferrari traded-off some aerodynamic efficiency for a bit less drag and a higher top-speed. One of the goals from last year was that they wanted to be more competitive at the high-speed tracks. That wouldn't be ideal for a track like Barcelona which is high downforce and which might explain some of their issues.


Haas F1 (shortened)
The American Ferrari team may be the big surprise in 2018. Both Renault and Mclaren see Haas in position 4 currently. Chief Günther Steiner is careful: "Position 4 would be an optimistic conclusion". Magnuses quoted "The balance of the car is very good. It's easy to drive and to set-up".


Renault (shortened)
After a very good end to the first week Renault already saw itself in position 4. Meanwhile, they conclude that HaasF1 and McLaren look quite good. Hulkenberg confirmed this by saying that he felt the balance was missing in the second testing week. Some of the issues are related to spare parts. Renault hopes to make this up with a better development rate [than Haas].


McLaren (shortened)
The quick laps by Alonso on the last day of testing came as a big positive surprise and puts them probably ahead of Torro-Rosso. The speed is there. Even if the car was loaded with 20kg of fuel, you still need to do those times. But reliability could still be a concern. The car stopped on track 6 times. Eric Boullier conceded that they gave their aerodynamicists too much freedom. "The whole concept evolves around being able to optimize our aerodynamic platform. It could well be that we went a bit over the limit here and there. But we have a lot of catching up to do and therefore, we needed to take a few risks".


Torro-Rosso-Honda (shortened)
Torro Rosso achieved over 8 days 819 laps or 3812 km. That is very respectabkle and almost as good as Ferrari. Apparently Honda used 3 different engine specifications in the first week to find the best one. That one was then used in week 2. It stayed in the car for the entire 2nd week and is proof that Honda has gotten better. Even the performance of the engine seems to be there, reaching top-speeds of 324kmh. At the moment, Torro-Rosso may even look like a serious contender for position 4.



DISCLAIMER: Sorry for the rough translation in parts. Tried to smooth it out a bit, but some of the stuff or how the german article is written are a bit difficult to translate word-for-word. And I am have run out of time to do the other teams, but I hope I covered the most interesting aspects of the top 6 teams. Ugh, my fingers hurt now.

autosport and Motorsport ranking completly different.....

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/team ... n-1013370/

[Bill_Kar]

How do they rank the teams? I don't have a prime subscription

[ace456]

BBC ranking : http://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1/43337930
The motorsport.com ranking article that Vanja shared actually elucidates how it arrived at the ranking.And poses some interesting questions. Its not speculative and biased like AMuS. They deservedly got a lot of hate for that.
Sky sports f1 for a change is cautious.
Autosport: I dont have a prime subscription, but of what ive read and heard from gary anderson, I know what he will have to say.

[LM10]

The hybrid era seems to have suited Mercedes the most. The experience on that topic which they had started to gain already years before 2014 might have helped them most among the teams. Also efficient engines are something Mercedes is known for generally. I don't know if this makes sense though, just some amateurish thoughts.

How Mercedes made F1’s best hybrid engine

Mercedes had no experience with a turbo – after all, the last time they were used in F1 pre-dated the team – so they relied on knowledge from elsewhere in the Daimler company. Although Mercedes uses turbos in its road cars, it was Daimler’s truck division that proved the most useful to Cowell and his team: the huge amounts of power involved in the F1 engine meant they were a better fit.

Yea, this kind of was what I meant. Much more experience than others.

What's more, the upcoming Mercedes-domination was surely not unknown intern back then. Why else did Hamilton change to a much weaker team in 2013?

The current engine rules are just too beneficial for Mercedes. Until this changes I don't see any other team passing them until 2021. They can come near, but not pass. Sad thing is that both Ferrari and RBR are not even close to being bad aerodynamically.
IF FIA doesn't do anything like for example increasing the amount of fuel you are allowed to use, it will more or less stay a one-horse race to get the crown at the end.

[Giblet]

Formula one sporting regulation 28.3 specifically forbids it. Why do you think they put that rule in?
If this was an 'official' event Vettel would be due a major slapping.

While a race is going on, yes. But this is a test. I'm just saying I am sure he did it safely and it's silly to assume otherwise.

These are all professionals, and I assume professionalism until I see otherwise.

The same way he was very professional when banging cars to vent his anger.

It's a conversation, not an argument. I am stating assumed logical standards, you assume a shambolic thing.

But hey, downvote away I guess. The sporting rule and all the others are for race weekends.

There was no issue with him backing up in the pitlane during the test. Same reason that the mechanics are not wearing helmets.

IT'S A TEST.

[JPBD1990]

Mark Priestly and I are on the same wavelength. Just cannot wrap my head around the Ferrari/redbull comparisons from elsewhere. Very keen to find out either way though!

https://youtu.be/oGJIYNIXKho

[LeClerc]

McLaren fans are nothing if not optimistics

[Ishwar030]

Mercedes W09 and Ferrari SF71H Wheelbase

[Restomaniac]

Mercedes W09 and Ferrari SF71H Wheelbase

https://www.formula1.com/content/fom-we ... 692287.jpg

Does that mean that the W09 is shorter than the W08?

[Edax]

The hybrid era seems to have suited Mercedes the most. The experience on that topic which they had started to gain already years before 2014 might have helped them most among the teams. Also efficient engines are something Mercedes is known for generally. I don't know if this makes sense though, just some amateurish thoughts.

How Mercedes made F1’s best hybrid engine

Mercedes had no experience with a turbo – after all, the last time they were used in F1 pre-dated the team – so they relied on knowledge from elsewhere in the Daimler company. Although Mercedes uses turbos in its road cars, it was Daimler’s truck division that proved the most useful to Cowell and his team: the huge amounts of power involved in the F1 engine meant they were a better fit.

Indeed. Mercedes trucks run forever and have tons of power. Thinking about it Ferrari, Renault and Honda don't have the sheer amount long term experience of dealing with the hugely powerful turbo engines that Mercedes do.

Renault does produce a lot of turbo powered trucks and cars as well, but I think they buy everything from MHI.

[Monster Hesh]

So wheel base went the opposite direction everyone thought? Ferrari extended instead of Mercedes shortening?

[GPR-A duplicate2]

Indeed. Mercedes trucks run forever and have tons of power. Thinking about it Ferrari, Renault and Honda don't have the sheer amount long term experience of dealing with the hugely powerful turbo engines that Mercedes do.

In fact, Renault and Ferrari have had the experience of building Turbo engines for F1 and they didn't get it right for 2014, whereas Mercedes who had NO experience of F1 turbo engines, not just built a powerful one, but also managed to create Split Turbo-Compressor, which no one had thought about. That gave the chassis construction a big boost for packaging. Over the past years, a lot of people try to discredit Mercedes saying, they started early and all that kind of stuff and they do not realize was, it was such an easy thing to get it wrong! By 2012, Mercedes share holders were already calling for pulling the plug on F1 program and their racing team was badly struggling and staring at 5th place finish. Under such circumstances, there should have been enormous pressure on people who were working on F1 project (PU and Chassis), because they were all staring at losing their jobs, had they got it wrong. That is why the architects of their success (Brawn, John Owen, Geoff Willis, Mike Elliott, Andy Cowell, Aldo Costa), deserve all the credit in the world.

Based on all these early reports about various different experts, Ferrari probably have a W08 in their hands and IF INDEED that is true, then we have an opportunity to witness if they have enough strength in depth and can do a Mercedes OR NOT. Was SF70h (2017) was born due to the unlimited wind tunnel time used with the Haas loop hole from 2015 OR do they really have strength in depth that can churn quick & right solutions in quick time.

[etusch]

Mercedes W09 and Ferrari SF71H Wheelbase

https://www.formula1.com/content/fom-we ... 692287.jpg

I wish Ferrari kept their concept of 2017. They were good. They just made tactical faults and reliability issues were the obstacles of their campaign to finish with success.
In the other hand we didn't see ferrari in another track. Maybe they will be better at different tracks. But when you compare, mercedes is good at barcelona too. So if it were working Ferrari also must be good here.