2021 Pre-season testing. Bahrain 12-14 March

[Herr_Koos]

There were lots of videos of the Mercs not hitting 8th gear on the straights. I don't think they ever really turned the wick up.

Can someone explain to me why teams wouldn’t run their engines on full power during testing? My logic tells me that you want to find the (engine) limits in real world use to see how far you can push them. I would think that they might run them even at a higher mode than what they think should be the maximum to see what would fail first.

You don't need to hit 8th gear to run at full power. if memory serves, you don't even have to run the proper gear ratios in testing. so you could push the engine hard, and never hit 8th gear.

From the sound of the onboard video, they were rev-limiting it. How high, I'm not sure.

[PhillipM]

You don't even use 8th on some tracks anyway.

[cooken]

Only problem is u cannot fully simulate G forces on dynos and rolling test rigs.

I would think the g forces happening during straight line acceleration are relatively benign and predictable. Can reliably prove out those conditions on a dyno so not a value add during a test.

[nfa]

Merc-equiped teams had best top speeds but Merc was amongst the slowest on the speed traps during perf runs. Low engine mode ? High DF and drag ?

https://blog.autoplus.fr/moncet/2021/03 ... ison-2021/

Mud for the water....
Mercedes' top five speeds at the speed trap were set on day 1, all on hard tires:

Lap time | Speed | Stint length
2:06 322 10 (lap 3)
1:38 321 6 (lap 3)
1:34 320 9 (lap 2)
1:33 320 10 (lap 4)
1:35 319 10 (lap 3)

On Hamilton's 2nd stint of the day, the first flying lap produced 320kph. Flying laps 1, 2, and 5 are linear with lap time. On laps 3, 6, & 7 he must have deliberately altered his speed or encountered traffic or a multitude of others (DRS use, battery charge, etc.)

1 01:34.875 320
2 01:36.129 307
3 01:36.358 295 (outlier)
4 01:36.829 ---
5 01:36.875 301
6 01:40.932 296 (outlier)
7 01:37.503 308 (outlier)

At the end of the day, I believe this confirms that Mercedes are working to their typical testing strategy of masking their performance as much as possible and also concentrating on higher downforce setups.

[Just_a_fan]

Merc-equiped teams had best top speeds but Merc was amongst the slowest on the speed traps during perf runs. Low engine mode ? High DF and drag ?

https://blog.autoplus.fr/moncet/2021/03 ... ison-2021/

Top speed is a bit of a red herring, to be honest. Any F1 car that is lacking in downforce will have a decent top speed. Downforce = drag (in simple terms). So a car with high top speed is likely not producing high downforce. In simple terms.

Sure, you can pretend by running at part throttle/low gears, etc., but ultimately a car with bad lap times and good top speed is not making enough downforce. A car with bad lap times and low top speed is probably taking the micky.

[Just_a_fan]

There were lots of videos of the Mercs not hitting 8th gear on the straights. I don't think they ever really turned the wick up.

Can someone explain to me why teams wouldn’t run their engines on full power during testing? My logic tells me that you want to find the (engine) limits in real world use to see how far you can push them. I would think that they might run them even at a higher mode than what they think should be the maximum to see what would fail first.

There's no need to run the PU hard in testing. You run the car at set speeds and assess the aero results - downforce and drag - and you run it long to check for major reliability. The "run it till you break it!" testing is done in the factory on the dyno.

Why? Because on-track testing costs a lot of money and spending that time changing broken engines is a waste of money.

[Just_a_fan]

There were lots of videos of the Mercs not hitting 8th gear on the straights. I don't think they ever really turned the wick up.

Can someone explain to me why teams wouldn’t run their engines on full power during testing? My logic tells me that you want to find the (engine) limits in real world use to see how far you can push them. I would think that they might run them even at a higher mode than what they think should be the maximum to see what would fail first.

You don't need to hit 8th gear to run at full power. if memory serves, you don't even have to run the proper gear ratios in testing. so you could push the engine hard, and never hit 8th gear.

Exactly. You could drive the entire lap on the rev limiter in 2nd gear and you'll be stressing the engine plenty. You could do the next lap banging in to the rev limiter in the first 7 gears and you're stressing the engine plenty. Full throttle 8th gear isn't exactly the be-all and end-all of testing.

[nzjrs]

Do they have to run the homologated? / same as the in-season gear ratios in testing?

[Just_a_fan]

Do they have to run the homologated? / same as the in-season gear ratios in testing?

I think testing is a totally open book. They can run what they like as there's no scrutineering. The assumption is that teams will run legal stuff because it's a waste of time to do otherwise. But they can if want to.

[Juzh]

There were lots of videos of the Mercs not hitting 8th gear on the straights. I don't think they ever really turned the wick up.

Can someone explain to me why teams wouldn’t run their engines on full power during testing? My logic tells me that you want to find the (engine) limits in real world use to see how far you can push them. I would think that they might run them even at a higher mode than what they think should be the maximum to see what would fail first.

In case of mercedes specifically, Scarbs speculated/presumed they were being cautious as a result of their gearbox problem on day 1. This included turning down PU and severely reducing gear shift performance (making it longer and less aggressive).

You don't need to hit 8th gear to run at full power. if memory serves, you don't even have to run the proper gear ratios in testing. so you could push the engine hard, and never hit 8th gear.

I don't understand this premise. Obviously you don't need 8th gear for full power, but you do need it if you want to go beyond ~300 kmh. Anyway, Hamilton was using 8th gear just fine on his few performance runs.

[dans79]

You don't need to hit 8th gear to run at full power. if memory serves, you don't even have to run the proper gear ratios in testing. so you could push the engine hard, and never hit 8th gear.

I don't understand this premise. Obviously you don't need 8th gear for full power, but you do need it if you want to go beyond ~300 kmh. Anyway, Hamilton was using 8th gear just fine on his few performance runs.

The point was how hard the engines is being worked has no direct correlation to what gear you're in.

[Schippke]

I think at some point in any Winter Test, each engine manufacture will run their respective Power Units on high modes at some point, whether it be by their own doing or using one of their satellite teams for example.

I'd imagine you could do it in a number of ways, maybe turning it up for a sector on a particular lap/laps, maybe running the higher engine modes whilst running on heavy fuel loads etc.

In saying that, I reckon most teams would be running their engines quite similarly now, since they're basically tuning their engine modes for a balance between qualifying and race, since the ICE is effectively 'Parc Fermed' from qualifying with regards to mapping and what not. However, they can still adjust deployment of the ERS systems and what not as they desire as far as I recall... which again, you could test that in a number of ways in testing.

[Marble]

Long runs data (doesn't give the pecking order but a sort of map and some insights on the team's programs).
Merc and Aston opted for several runs with approx same fuel (Shov said they reduced the stints length to test more items).

https://blog.autoplus.fr/moncet/2021/03 ... ison-2021/

[Juzh]

another FOM prediction, this time from weekend debrief:
Circular dots are predicted positions and horizontal lines are margin of error for best case scenario and worst case scenario.

[mzso]

another FOM prediction, this time from weekend debrief:
Circular dots are predicted positions and horizontal lines are margin of error for best case scenario and worst case scenario.

https://i.imgur.com/taJfVU9.jpg

Well. Based on this Williams or Haas might be second fastest behind RB...