2021 Pre-season testing. Bahrain 12-14 March

[SirBastianVettel]

I don’t understand people’s reaction. Are you really believing that Merc won’t be at the front, when they have the highest apex speed on every single corner on this track. You must be smoking something very strong. Whenever I’ve seen Valtteri today at the wheel, the car looked pretty darned composed, traditionally they run with a boat load of fuel for all their work. To read anything into testing, you have to take into consideration that their apex speed is amongst the highest even at high fuel loads. That will tell you EVERYTHING you need to know for now

Exactly, it’s like winter testing 2019 all over again. “Ferrari is too fast”, followed by out qualifying them by 0.7 in Australia.

It’s going to be a Mercedes 1-2 in two weeks time.

[JPower]

I don’t understand people’s reaction. Are you really believing that Merc won’t be at the front, when they have the highest apex speed on every single corner on this track. You must be smoking something very strong. Whenever I’ve seen Valtteri today at the wheel, the car looked pretty darned composed, traditionally they run with a boat load of fuel for all their work. To read anything into testing, you have to take into consideration that their apex speed is amongst the highest even at high fuel loads. That will tell you EVERYTHING you need to know for now

I don't understand that reaction and I don't understand anyone saying there was any breakout team in the midfield. They all look about the same.

[mkay]

I don’t understand people’s reaction. Are you really believing that Merc won’t be at the front, when they have the highest apex speed on every single corner on this track. You must be smoking something very strong. Whenever I’ve seen Valtteri today at the wheel, the car looked pretty darned composed, traditionally they run with a boat load of fuel for all their work. To read anything into testing, you have to take into consideration that their apex speed is amongst the highest even at high fuel loads. That will tell you EVERYTHING you need to know for now

Source?

HAM was achieving similar top speeds to VER on his C4/C5 runs today, so whatever time he lost was in the corners.

If you are referring to yesterday's mini-sector analysis, remember that BOT had the best time and ran with C5 so it's somewhat expected to have the highest cornering speeds.

[NathanOlder]

I don’t understand people’s reaction. Are you really believing that Merc won’t be at the front, when they have the highest apex speed on every single corner on this track. You must be smoking something very strong. Whenever I’ve seen Valtteri today at the wheel, the car looked pretty darned composed, traditionally they run with a boat load of fuel for all their work. To read anything into testing, you have to take into consideration that their apex speed is amongst the highest even at high fuel loads. That will tell you EVERYTHING you need to know for now

Source?

HAM was achieving similar top speeds to VER on his C4/C5 runs today, so whatever time he lost was in the corners.

If you are referring to yesterday's mini-sector analysis, remember that BOT had the best time and ran with C5 so it's somewhat expected to have the highest cornering speeds.

Hamilton was setting purple mini sectors in the last 20mins or so today. Not many, but there were a few. That at least suggests the car was fast in some of the corners.

As for the straights, top speeds can still be similar despite not using as much ERS power. Would be interesting to see the GPS data the teams have available to them.

[kfrantzios]

Long stints on C2 tires. All from the last day except from PER which was from the second day of practice
Notice the improving pace of RIC

[LM10]

I think, as for now it's pretty normal for people at home to claim that Mercedes has problems because, well, it simply seemed so on TV. It was not the usual Mercedes-performance. Hamilton sliding all over the place trying to countersteer, completely spinning and also losing control into the gravel being the only car doing so. That's a sight people normally don't witness at all - not even in testing.
Looking at the lap times, both long and short runs, Mercedes again didn't show anything special or am I missing anything? No proper race sim done (most probably because they lost time and didn't get through with all their set-up programme) and also on what seemed to be a qualy sim the car was not really balanced.

Adding up all that there is just one single explanation for people without access to GPS data to still claim that Mercedes is the car to beat at the moment and that's their reputation. It's hard to believe for a rock solid team which last season had the fastest car by far to suddenly struggle significantly and not be the favourites anymore.
Mercedes and RBR are the class of the field (and as for Mercedes I only tell that because I know they're, not because of testing which was anything but promising), but at the moment I'm almost sure that the RBR is the car to beat and that Mercedes needs to do something in order to change that. Whether that's an upgrade package that's already been planned long ago or simply putting all the data together and adjusting the car, we'll find out.

We're up to a pretty exciting season.

[Sulman]

I didn't read too much into it, but testing might not give you a precise grid, but it can give you an impression of what it might look like.

Mercedes didn't have an easy time of it, but the thing I thought was significant was Hamilton's very lazy spin. Unlike him, and unlike the car. Shades of the FW16 in '94 to my memory. It's as if they never quite got the car working right.

The last hour of 3/2 looked like a lot of teams had either completed or torn up the program and were having a bit of fun.

[foxmulder_ms]

I don’t understand people’s reaction. Are you really believing that Merc won’t be at the front, when they have the highest apex speed on every single corner on this track. You must be smoking something very strong. Whenever I’ve seen Valtteri today at the wheel, the car looked pretty darned composed, traditionally they run with a boat load of fuel for all their work. To read anything into testing, you have to take into consideration that their apex speed is amongst the highest even at high fuel loads. That will tell you EVERYTHING you need to know for now

Source?

HAM was achieving similar top speeds to VER on his C4/C5 runs today, so whatever time he lost was in the corners.

If you are referring to yesterday's mini-sector analysis, remember that BOT had the best time and ran with C5 so it's somewhat expected to have the highest cornering speeds.

Hamilton was setting purple mini sectors in the last 20mins or so today. Not many, but there were a few. That at least suggests the car was fast in some of the corners.

As for the straights, top speeds can still be similar despite not using as much ERS power. Would be interesting to see the GPS data the teams have available to them.

I find it funny that some is trying to gloss over a disaster of testing for Merc. As I wrote it is not even only testing on itself. It is the body language of Hamilton, his deal saga plus Toto is not really committing long term to the team. On contrary, Redbull is having the best testing in last 6-7 years. Redbull is the favorite. Mercs are slower.

As a Merc fan, I hope I am wrong but all indications are bad for Merc.

[Sulman]

Source?

HAM was achieving similar top speeds to VER on his C4/C5 runs today, so whatever time he lost was in the corners.

If you are referring to yesterday's mini-sector analysis, remember that BOT had the best time and ran with C5 so it's somewhat expected to have the highest cornering speeds.

Hamilton was setting purple mini sectors in the last 20mins or so today. Not many, but there were a few. That at least suggests the car was fast in some of the corners.

As for the straights, top speeds can still be similar despite not using as much ERS power. Would be interesting to see the GPS data the teams have available to them.

I find it funny that some is trying to gloss over a disaster of testing for Merc. As I wrote it is not even only testing on itself. It is the body language of Hamilton, his deal saga plus Toto is not really committing long term to the team. On contrary, Redbull is having the best testing in last 6-7 years. Redbull is the favorite. Mercs are slower.

As a Merc fan, I hope I am wrong but all indications are bad for Merc.

Nothing lasts forever. This is particularly true with dominant teams.

[grubschumi13]

If the pecking order really is like this, then this will be a season Ham fans will complain to and about the FIA about changing the regulations. In their book the changes will be deemed "unfair"

[V12-POWER]

I’m saving my words for qualy, but for now lets just hope this Mercedes heavens harmonious fairytale is over

[JPower]

If the pecking order really is like this, then this will be a season Ham fans will complain to and about the FIA about changing the regulations. In their book the changes will be deemed "unfair"

Just stop.

[JordanMugen]

Andrew Shovlin pretty much confirms Merc pace (or lack thereof) is somewhat genuine. I do wonder what the heck they did over the 2nd half of 2020, having stopped development of the 2020 car earlier than every other team?!

The Merc 2020 to 2021 transition is potentially McLaren 2012 to 2013 levels of bad.

They switched to higher rake. It's harder than it looks as the efforts of Red Bull and Renault show.

It would seem that Mercedes were more reliant on that part of the floor in front of the rear tyre, whereas for Red Bull, Renault and others that part of the floor was quite far off the ground and didn't do much anyway, and they have developed good workarounds for that over the years. Just a thought.

If Mercedes have lost 4 or 5 tenths, and Red Bull have gained 2 or 3 tenths, we could have a battle for the titles. Here's hoping.

They didn't revise their gearbox either. So the Mercedes car is very bulky in the critical gearbox area compared to Red Bull, McLaren or even Alpine.




Everyone else has pulled out all the stops in that area, whereas Mercedes are still running a 2020 gearbox!?

[JPBD1990]

Remember Mercedes HAS spent their 2 tokens, but nobody knows (or can see) where. I’d say it’s probable that they’ve spent them on the critical area at the rear with the reg changes for this year, and it’s likely we’ll see something more about this on/after their ‘filming day’.

[cheeRS]

Remember Mercedes HAS spent their 2 tokens, but nobody knows (or can see) where. I’d say it’s probable that they’ve spent them on the critical area at the rear with the reg changes for this year, and it’s likely we’ll see something more about this on/after their ‘filming day’.

^This^


I feel that this year, perhaps Mercedes has one of those game-changing innovations that they're really hiding this year. No one can see where Merc spend their tokens, but James Allison said they'd become obvious "in good time" or something to that effect.

Every year it's the same story: "Testing doesn't mean much; testing doesn't tell the whole story". But then everyone throws that out the windows at the end of testing and tries to predict the results of season's end.

Just wait for Q3 in a couple weeks, at least.