2021 Pre-season testing. Bahrain 12-14 March

[damager21]

Mercedes is obviously right up there. Everyone who is discounting Mercedes this year in their heart know that Mercedes is strong but is hoping that we have a close and a hard fought season this year with Red Bull also right up there from the first race.

Last year, Red Bull had a good second week of testing but despite that we know how strong Mercedes proved to be

2020 - Week 2 testing
Day1
Max (P2) Albon (P6) Lewis (P7) Bottas (P9)

Day2
Max (P6) Bottas (P7) Albon (P10) Lewis (P13) - Merc suffered reliability issues

Day3
Bottas (P1) Max (P2) Lewis (P5) Albon (P14)

2021 - Testing
Day1
Max (P1) Lewis (P10) Bottas (P17) - Merc suffered reliability issues

Day2
Bottas (P1) Perez (P8) Lewis (P15)

Day3
Max (P1) Lewis (P5) Perez (P8) Bottas (P16)

So back in 2020, Max was ahead in 2 days and on the 3rd day was behind Bottas by only 0.073 sec.

Lets hope for a closely fought battle this year!

[carisi2k]

Like others I'm wary of claiming that Mercedes is suddenly useless however unlike previous years such as 2019 there was only 3 days of testing in 2021 and the Merc was either braking down or spinning quite a lot. The Red Bull did this the last 2 years in testing especially with Gasly and Albon spinning and it showed with the struggles Red Bull had early in the championship in those years. I'm not saying it won't happen but there is a lot of things different between the 8 days of 2019 testing and the 3 days of 2021 testing. Mercedes still put the most mileage up in 2019 (even if they weren't the fastest) which they certainly didn't manage this year. They also bought an upgrade package to test in 2019 which they certainly won't be doing this year.

[aMessageToCharlie]

I don’t think the lack of mileage for Merc is as bad as people make it out to be.

After all they're just 23 laps short of Mclaren, which everybody agrees had a great test.

[Vasconia]

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.

I just hope RB can compete with them this year, because I am pretty sure that Mercedes will be the first one, these "problems" more related to Hamilton look like minor adaptation problems rather than core problems. If the car would be difficult to handle I am pretty sure that Bottas would have much bigger problems, which is not the case.

[Vasconia]

Sky and mark hughes are clueless, i don't know what screens they are watching. On his currently fastest lap 1.30.0 Hamilton was using 8th gear as usual and had the same top speed more or less as verstappen did on his fastest lap 1.28.9. Both around 308-310 kmh on main straight.

It would be a welcome change, if the 2021 regulations have made Mercedes go to a somewhat higher rake to get performance back, and their lack of experience and understanding with higher rake designs has tripped them up somewhat.

It does seem there is something wrong with the balance of the Mercedes, but the question is if they can fix it already in two weeks, or if it will take much longer and give Verstappen (or others) the chance to build a WDC lead.

Be ready for another "mighty comeback" by Mercedes, being able to miracously find a solution for their problems.

[101FlyingDutchman]

Exactly that.
“The team worked so hard to overcome our problems”
“Without then this wouldn’t be possible”
“We had to push so hard”
“Still we rise”

[MKlaus]

the talks of "high rake" and "low rake" is so beaten to death and amateurish, yet people on tv and on forums keep repeating the same old narrow, blinkered discussions every time they see a team struggling with some aero inconsistency. now it suddenly appears that the simplified front wing is not a problem for red bull anymore and their high rake philosophy, but the revised floor is a problem for mercedes and their low rake philosophy.

was the solution for red bull's aero problems, induced by simplified front wing of 2019, lying in this new regulation floor?

[djos]

Sky and mark hughes are clueless, i don't know what screens they are watching. On his currently fastest lap 1.30.0 Hamilton was using 8th gear as usual and had the same top speed more or less as verstappen did on his fastest lap 1.28.9. Both around 308-310 kmh on main straight.

It would be a welcome change, if the 2021 regulations have made Mercedes go to a somewhat higher rake to get performance back, and their lack of experience and understanding with higher rake designs has tripped them up somewhat.

It does seem there is something wrong with the balance of the Mercedes, but the question is if they can fix it already in two weeks, or if it will take much longer and give Verstappen (or others) the chance to build a WDC lead.

Be ready for another "mighty comeback" by Mercedes, being able to miracously find a solution for their problems.

I’m not saying Mercedes are lost or slow, however If they do have a serious car flaw, they won’t be able to throw money and resources at the problem like they could in seasons past.

They have a 25% of their old budget due to the cost cap and a lot less staff now.

[hichamo]

Anyone has the top speed chart for the test!!
Binot saying they have the most top speed on the straight. And the don't have anymore deficit in their PU .

[SirBastianVettel]

Anyone has the top speed chart for the test!!
Binot saying they have the most top speed on the straight. And the don't have anymore deficit in their PU .

Just enjoy this feeling while it last, I don’t recommend ruining it by actual figures.

[hichamo]

Yeah I know, just wanted to to a comparison on the top speed trap

[LM10]

Anyone has the top speed chart for the test!!
Binot saying they have the most top speed on the straight. And the don't have anymore deficit in their PU .

When has Binotto told they have the highest top speed? What he told was that the speed on the straights is not a problem for them anymore.
Despite that, top speeds in testing are totally irrelevant.

[hichamo]

https://f1only.fr/moteur-ferrari-news-e ... naux-2012/

[LM10]

https://f1only.fr/moteur-ferrari-news-e ... naux-2012/

If you read Binotto’s quotes it does not say that they have or had the highest top speed. It’s the reporter who wrote that Ferrari was one of the the cars with highest top speeds in testing.

[basti313]

It would be a welcome change, if the 2021 regulations have made Mercedes go to a somewhat higher rake to get performance back, and their lack of experience and understanding with higher rake designs has tripped them up somewhat.

It does seem there is something wrong with the balance of the Mercedes, but the question is if they can fix it already in two weeks, or if it will take much longer and give Verstappen (or others) the chance to build a WDC lead.

Be ready for another "mighty comeback" by Mercedes, being able to miracously find a solution for their problems.

I’m not saying Mercedes are lost or slow, however If they do have a serious car flaw, they won’t be able to throw money and resources at the problem like they could in seasons past.

They have a 25% of their old budget due to the cost cap and a lot less staff now.

They don't even have to pay extra money for unloading the sandbags like the last seasons. This is included now in Bot's contract, he has to do it as a training session to go to Bottas 5.0.