F1 2019 Pre-Season Testing Thread

[TAG]

Something in my gut is telling me that Lewis will take the title while the red's fight each other.

I can almost hear Kimi chuckle at that.

[Mach]

Do teams risk showing their aerodynamic secrets when using flo-vis?

[wickedz50]

Something in my gut is telling me that Lewis will take the title while the red's fight each other.

I can almost hear Kimi chuckle at that.

[Schuttelberg]

Something in my gut is telling me that Lewis will take the title while the red's fight each other.

I can almost hear Kimi chuckle at that.

Bwoaaah.

[Vasconia]

He won't ever be greater than Schumacher to me even if he wins 10 title but that's besides the point.

When he crashes in to people to win titles, you can start to compare Hamilton to Schumacher. Until then, Hamilton's the greater driver.

that's just a englishmen talking to a German .... never ever will a Schumacher-Fan tell you Hamilton is the greatest and vice versa neither, nor will a real Verstappen-Fan tell you, he went over the line against Ocon

I will always say that Michael was mentally stronger and had more consistency than Lewis. I also think that Lewis is faster in qualy while Michael could beat him on long runs. BUT we will never know it as we didnt see both on their very best, which is is a pity indeed.

My conclusion is that I have been verly lucky to see both drivers at their pinacle. I can´t ask for more.

[SiLo]

By the way @SmilexTech on Twitter mentioned this quote from Bottas about Mercedes:
https://twitter.com/SmilexTech/status/1 ... 1148681217
Translation by Google Translate:

The most important problem of Mercedes in the first four days of testing explained well by Bottas: "With these cold conditions, on our car the tires seem to have a very narrow window of operation"

That 1:18.1 Bottas did on C2 tyres seems to have flown under the radar. That's a very quick time. I think the conditions were too cold for Mercedes somehow, looks like they have their tyre temps very much under control.

[Juzh]

kimi vs grosjean



Seems like alfa ran with much more power than haas. Already into turn 1 raikkonen is quite a bit futher up the road. Given the tire difference as well I don't think haas is all that bad.

[NathanOlder]

Do we know why the Renault stopped yesterday

[Vasconia]

That 1:18.1 Bottas did on C2 tyres seems to have flown under the radar. That's a very quick time. I think the conditions were too cold for Mercedes somehow, looks like they have their tyre temps very much under control.

And they won´t face those temperatures again. So I don´t see problems for Mercedes. It seems that the drivers are following Toto´s instructions to act as underdogs, then win in Australia and thank the team for a such a great job improving the car...

[KiLLu12258]

Maybe they try to go more like the ferrari way and be more competetive when it comes to higher temperatures.

So this is why they have those problems now, but with normal temp. its better for them as they will not get problems with tyres when its a bit warmer then usually.
Last year the mercedes were working like a boss at even colder weather at testing.

[LM10]

By the way @SmilexTech on Twitter mentioned this quote from Bottas about Mercedes:
https://twitter.com/SmilexTech/status/1 ... 1148681217
Translation by Google Translate:

The most important problem of Mercedes in the first four days of testing explained well by Bottas: "With these cold conditions, on our car the tires seem to have a very narrow window of operation"

That 1:18.1 Bottas did on C2 tyres seems to have flown under the radar. That's a very quick time. I think the conditions were too cold for Mercedes somehow, looks like they have their tyre temps very much under control.

1:18.1 was done on C3.

[KiLLu12258]

By the way @SmilexTech on Twitter mentioned this quote from Bottas about Mercedes:
https://twitter.com/SmilexTech/status/1 ... 1148681217
Translation by Google Translate:

The most important problem of Mercedes in the first four days of testing explained well by Bottas: "With these cold conditions, on our car the tires seem to have a very narrow window of operation"

That 1:18.1 Bottas did on C2 tyres seems to have flown under the radar. That's a very quick time. I think the conditions were too cold for Mercedes somehow, looks like they have their tyre temps very much under control.

not to forget that last year they smashed everything with the medium tyres at testing. But they cant head over the pace to softer tyres. Maybe this is still the case.

[Wynters]

BRO, you write this NOW, this is simply POST-LOGIC after 2018 season, It is a human tendence to think that what you think NOW was so logic and evident also ONE YEAR AGO.

Previous year performance, plus lack of rule changes plus funding model. Tell me, are you constantly surprised that the Red Bull has excellent aero? Or do you think there's a link between their aero strength versus consistent design philosophy, Newey and their large budget? I suspect the latter, but maybe that's just confirmation bias?

I was in barcellona in 2018 and I was on the forum and the common sense was far from what you say now...ON THE AVERAGE people thought that mercedes was far ahead.

On the average, people are not astute observers of a highly technical pursuit. If you ever need to go in for brain surgery, I would recommend not nipping into your local supermarket and taking the average view of where the incisions should be made.

If you think testing is irrelevant and you barely have any interest in it, what are you doing in this very thread?

Did I say testing is irrelevant?

I've barely any interest in testing lap times and I haven't even looked at the long runs for 2019

Hmm, looks like I was specific about lap times. Weird.

I think there's more to testing than just the timing screens but you make it very clear that I'm wrong to hold that view.

Speculation and educated guesswork can, indeed, be an engaging intellectual pursuit. But there is a significant proportion of posters who are cluttering the thread with spurious rubbish and, in turn, creating a prevailing view that is almost entirely baseless. People are free to post what they want but I felt it might be useful to remind people that the testing lap times (particularly at the first test) and the reality of relative performance at Melbourne and beyond are often different and their are a plethora of crucial factors that impact those times that are not easily visible to casual observers.I guess I should apologise for even questioning the approach.

Perhaps if people showed their working (e.g. Lap time is 'W', fuel load is a minimum of 'X' which means a minimum lap time impact of 'Y' (and an acknowledgement that later laps could include fuel saving so a static time penalty for fuel per lap is perhaps inaccurate), and on tyre compound 'Z' (with calculations for suspected relative performance steps between compounds and projected tyre wear for the point in the stint that the time was set and, if possible, confirmation of overall life expenditure of the tyres as they might be on an old set), and then creating a 'real' lap time (with a likely bellcurve-style range) then I'd have a bit more faith. But that's not what the overwhelming majority of this thread actually seems to be interested in and the more chaff that accrues, the less likely a different, more rigorous approach will be encouraged.

[f1316]

By the way @SmilexTech on Twitter mentioned this quote from Bottas about Mercedes:
https://twitter.com/SmilexTech/status/1 ... 1148681217
Translation by Google Translate:

That 1:18.1 Bottas did on C2 tyres seems to have flown under the radar. That's a very quick time. I think the conditions were too cold for Mercedes somehow, looks like they have their tyre temps very much under control.

1:18.1 was done on C3.

Yes, Bottas did a 1:18.3 on the C2 in the afternoon - one tenth faster than Leclerc who did a 1:18.4 on the C2 in the morning (at the same time Hamilton did a 1:18.8 on the C2).

Leclerc was also setting his C2 and C3 times on reasonably long runs (double figures of laps) whereas Bottas’ was a three lap run (five laps with in and out included).

[Wynters]

Do teams risk showing their aerodynamic secrets when using flo-vis?

Sometimes, and often only partially. The teams are generally quite specific on where and how they use the paint (although not always, I'm looking at you, 2018 Williams) and whilst the outcome on the paint is visible, the combination of factors that has led to it will be more opaque for other teams observing. Like seeing the answer to a complicated formula and only being able to observe some blotches of the working. The answer might be interesting and indicative, but it's difficult to know for sure how it was reached.