F1 2019 Pre-Season Testing Thread

[Espresso]

Could it has been posted before. Mea Culpa...to many post to go through.
But just in case I add it.

P.S. Don't open it with a 'limited data' connected mobile phone...this website will eat your datavolume...

https://www.tracksidelegends.com/galler ... elona-2019
Please honor their copyrights

[f1316]

My hope for this year is that the likes of Renault, Alfa - possibly Haas, possibly McLaren - have closed the gap to the front three sufficiently that they can no longer choose to do Q2 on anything but the softest compound.

If so, we end up with some races where it’s a bit like China 2013 - where those in the top ten have to pit before they’ve built enough gap to come out in front of those starting on the medium tyre. This then requires them to fight through the traffic, adding interest.

It probably requires a combination of a. Pirelli missing a step in compounds for a weekend as they did on some occasions last year (e.g. soft= C5; med= C3; hard = C2); b. A gap between top 3 and midfield of not more than 0.7 or so.

I think that’s possible and would add some intrigue + open the possibility of some of those teams occasionally snatching podiums in hard to overtake tracks.

[CreepierEnd]

that's it then, pack it up bois

I would pack it up very easy but this would be the single most interesting stint of the test so far and I cannot find it anywhere...so please source.

It was on the Autosport live feed. They actually stated that Bottas posted the time on his 16th lap on a stint of running on the C2 tyres

Bottas didn't make that 1:18:3 on his 16th lap. It was his 16th lap of the day which he set the fastest time...

[Sieper]

My hope for this year is that the likes of Renault, Alfa - possibly Haas, possibly McLaren - have closed the gap to the front three sufficiently that they can no longer choose to do Q2 on anything but the softest compound.

If so, we end up with some races where it’s a bit like China 2013 - where those in the top ten have to pit before they’ve built enough gap to come out in front of those starting on the medium tyre. This then requires them to fight through the traffic, adding interest.

It probably requires a combination of a. Pirelli missing a step in compounds for a weekend as they did on some occasions last year (e.g. soft= C5; med= C3; hard = C2); b. A gap between top 3 and midfield of not more than 0.7 or so.

I think that’s possible and would add some intrigue + open the possibility of some of those teams occasionally snatching podiums in hard to overtake tracks.

helass, the HAAS and Alfa will move over for Ferrari drivers. So it will not be so nice, yes if you are Ferrari it is great. Otherwise it is just a unfair side-effect of the B teams.

[miguelalvesreis]

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.

Enviado do meu SM-T820 através do Tapatalk

[Phil]

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.

In my opinion, it's more being cluttered with people downplaying everything that is being posted that might all add up to a larger and perhaps not so far-fetched picture. I also feel these very people are mistaking what is being posted as any kind of scientific proof. It isn't. No one is arguing that what is being posted is the definitive pecking order or what will be come Melbourne.

The development race has kicked off already. The cars that are being driven right now are work-in-progress. No one knows who will have the fastest package on day X sometime in the future. That is pretty obvious, yet people are still coming in here wanting to point it out as an answer to eveything. What is being discussed in here, right now, is relevant to testing and perhaps to some degree in the second pre-testing and to some smaller degree when the season kicks off. Why? Because the changes introduced this year have led to larger changes in how teams tackle it. Evidently, the top 3 teams (who will likely remain the top 3 easily) have opted for different aero concepts. What worked in 2017 & 2018 (aka Mercedes's concept) may not work as well in 2019. This is the intriguing story that is being discussed. And because aero concepts can't be changed over night. In other words; most of these teams have gambled on something that they believe to be the best solution across the season. If it is or not, is yet to be seen.

In my personal opinion; Ferrari had the best package last year. They should have won but for many different reasons (predominantly not winning the races they should have won), Mercedes/Hamilton came through yet again. Even the year before, Ferrari had an excellent package, yet Mercedes probably just had that PU edge that carried them through the season. Not last year though and right now, one has to assume Mercedes and Ferrari are equal in terms of engine power & efficiency, if not in Ferrari's slight favor. Honda remains the big mystery at this point, but assuming Honda has closed the gap a bit more and how extremely well that RedBull went with even an underperforming Renault engine last year, I see them as a huge threat to this years championship. To what extent will come down to reliability.

Talking strictly performance, I personally think Mercedes is going to be facing a very difficult year. They can't ride the PU edge they previously enjoyed up to '17 so it will come down to chassis and aero. And in this particular aspect, we have Mercedes as the only team running a low-rake car - for obvious reasons. They know the concept and it has worked so well. I am not saying they won't be fast, but from everything on-track observers and what the teams are saying (you know, the guys with more intel than any of us), it seems that right now, Ferrari seems to be very strong once again and that Mercedes is slightly behind. By how much, who knows. This of course doesn't mean Mercedes won't be come Melbourne (not a representative track anyway) or not be better at the second test, but for now, it is what it seems to be. Nothing less, nothing more.

I'll happily take those opinions and reports over any speculation on lap times at this point, because as many have pointed out - lap times are difficult to quantify without knowing the respective fuel loads and to what degree the engine is being run. To some extent, one can assume that at least Mercedes and Ferrari are running similar tuning states, as it wouldn't make sense for one to go extremely different than the other. Fuel is another matter and purely quantifying that on lap times is difficult. The long runs obviously say more than than the low runs, again for obvious reasons.

One of the largest performance differentiators this year will be how much performance can be extracted from the tires. Mastering tire wear and degredation will be key and just as important as outright pace. I feel this is one of the key areas Mercedes is focusing on. At the same time, that Ferrari just seems to go well once again, easy to extract performance. But again, we're only at testing 1 and assuming the 'experts' have it right and Mercedes are finding themselves behind, I'm very much curious to see if their car and the concept they have chosen allows them to close that gap or if they will be behind indeed once the season hits off.

Or perhaps Mercedes are indeed just selling us for stupid and are hiding some unseen performance, but I very much doubt so (my personal opinion). Doesn't mean they can't still find that edge or blow us away come Melbourne (again, a very unrepresentative track / Bahrain will be way more interesting in regards to the season outlook).

[f1316]

My hope for this year is that the likes of Renault, Alfa - possibly Haas, possibly McLaren - have closed the gap to the front three sufficiently that they can no longer choose to do Q2 on anything but the softest compound.

If so, we end up with some races where it’s a bit like China 2013 - where those in the top ten have to pit before they’ve built enough gap to come out in front of those starting on the medium tyre. This then requires them to fight through the traffic, adding interest.

It probably requires a combination of a. Pirelli missing a step in compounds for a weekend as they did on some occasions last year (e.g. soft= C5; med= C3; hard = C2); b. A gap between top 3 and midfield of not more than 0.7 or so.

I think that’s possible and would add some intrigue + open the possibility of some of those teams occasionally snatching podiums in hard to overtake tracks.

helass, the HAAS and Alfa will move over for Ferrari drivers. So it will not be so nice, yes if you are Ferrari it is great. Otherwise it is just a unfair side-effect of the B teams.

I dunno man, Kimi didn’t move over for Seb last year when he was in a Ferrari! Giovanazzi, yes, but I very much doubt K-Mag or even Grosjean would. Haas will do their own thing, particularly if they sniff a podium.

Let’s say you throw a Force India - which we know lept out of Lewis’ way in Monaco - and the STR’s - which have the closest affiliation of all - into that mix as well, which is also totally possible, and you have a fairly even spread of supportive allies.

[Sieper]

I also dunno about that, both HAAS and this year more Alfa-Romeo seem like runners up (after Renault, that don't have any affiliation but I know one expected top team they would like to keep behind). RBR has only one B-team and Merc has one customer team sitting likely at the back of the grid.

Interteam battles is something different but "This is James, we are very sorry Valterri" has already been announced more or less by Ferrari for this year (Vettel will get the preferential treatment if need be) as indeed last year they could have had a few moments were they could have asked Kimi to move and indeed didn't.

[Sierra117]

Well the customer-teams-moving-aside thing is tough to eliminate as long as customer teams exist. The only way would be to perhaps have a "subscription" where teams like Williams pay Merc for help with building their own engines. So Merc wouldn't be building the actual engine, just answering "yes", "no", "you're getting warm (closer to the answer)" as Williams meanders its way trying to build its engine. Would take a while but if it can work then sure, eliminate customer teams and have pure manufacturer wars.

Or get more manufacturers like Porsche, BMW etc. in but they don't seem too interested.

[GPR-A]

I'm very much curious to see if their car and the concept they have chosen allows them to close that gap or if they will be behind indeed once the season hits off.

What has set the Mercedes apart in the V6 era, is that, they have always followed their own aero philosophy. While 2014-16 was a cake walk, when they turned up with a longest wheel base in 2017 and with lowest rake, there were doubts in winter testing. There were rumors that, when Mercedes tried the higher rake, they were losing downforce and hence had to stick to lower rake. For large part of the season, they got flak for that philosophy as they struggled on slow corners (and slower tracks). There was almost a certain guaranteed speculation that, Mercedes would return to shorter wheel base for 2018, but yet again, they turned with the same philosophy, whereas Ferrari surprised everyone by going for longer wheel base!

While in both 2017 and 2018, Ferrari started with faster car out of the box, Mercedes were struggling in taming the 'diva' W08 and 'diva-ish' W09. In both of those seasons, at various points, Ferrari had better PU. This might very well be a RB 2012 like season for Mercedes. It might very well be, with the might of development and problem solving capabilities that they have demonstrated in the past 2 years. Who knows! I expect Mercedes to move ahead with their aero philosophy and fine tune it to yield the expected performance. All the teams have plans of bringing significant aero upgrades for Test 2. It would be very interesting to see what those upgrades are gonna look and perform like. Let's enjoy the Winter Test 2.

[marvin78]

in 2018 I did not see any team from the midfield to the backmarkers who did NOT move aside, if one from the 3 top teams came from behind. They all understood, that with these tyres your race is ruined, if you don't let the much faster pass very quickly. In the discussed context, I dont's see this problem with customer teams.

[dans79]

This might very well be a RB 2012 like season for Mercedes.

I'd personally really enjoy that, specially if it was followed by a RB 2013.

[illario]

OFF TOPIC
SF90 top air intake reminds me of Williams FW17

[dans79]

As an aside this is how you know the entire f1 press core is full of sh** these days.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/14169 ... -advantage

Present data, and then spend the rest of the article stating why its worthless. They even missed a good reason why its worthless, namely being none of the teams could reproduce the gaps Pirelli is predicting.

[GPR-A]

As an aside this is how you know the entire f1 press core is full of sh** these days.

https://www.autosport.com/f1/news/14169 ... -advantage

Present data, and then spend the rest of the article stating why its worthless. They even missed a good reason why its worthless, namely being none of the teams could reproduce the gaps Pirelli is predicting.

There are more significant factors beyond the tyre compound that influence a lap time in testing, including engine modes and fuel levels.

Our technical consultant Gary Anderson has factored in these variables, as well as his own interpretation of the Pirelli data, in his end of test ranking feature.

That is, entirely believable!