Vettel fastest today, times from this morning: Morning times: Pos Driver Team Time Laps 1. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1m23.046s 25 2. Kimi Raikkonen Lotus 1m23.571s + 0.525s 19 3. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m23.626s + 0.580s 44 4. Pastor Maldonado Williams 1m23.733s + 0.687s 47 5. Daniel Ricciardo Toro Rosso 1m23.884s + 0.838s 44 6. Sergio Perez McLaren 1m24.124s + 1.078s 22 7. Paul di Resta Force India 1m24.144s + 1.098s 47 8. Nico Rosberg Mercedes 1m24.520s + 1.474s 14 9. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1m25.136s + 2.090s 38 10. Charles Pic Caterham 1m27.534s + 4.488s 40 11. Max Chilton Marussia 1m28.068s + 5.022s 36 Source and more: Barcelona F1 test: Vettel sets early pace for Red Bull - F1 news - AUTOSPORT.com
how do these times compare with qualifying last year? Are they running mostly high fuel medium distance to determine tire wear right now?
Nando does a 1:23.6 2nd lap of a 13 lap run - that's quick considering he had at least 12 laps of fuel on board
As I said in the AMGW04 thread, everyone is killing their tires at this track today. No one can hide from it. It seems Mclaren and then Mercedes are eating their tires more than anyone, followed closely by Ferrari and Lotus, and of course Red Bull looks easiest on tires. Nico set the pace today on mediums at 1:22.616 and then did a 5 lap run Kimi on softs 1:22.623 did a two lap run Nando (mediums) 1:22.952 and then did a 10 lap run Vettel (mediums) 1:22.965 then did 6 laps. Last year's pole position WITH DRS in use everywhere was 1:21.707 set by Lewis Hamilton. Any time in the 1:22s minus DRS useage is indeed much quicker. DRS in last year's useage at this circuit is worth a bit over a second. Timing: 19 february, tuesday. Circuit de Catalunya (Barcelona), Spain.
I can see the tire degradation being a strong suffering point for any team that have the issues. It cost Mercedes quite a few points last year.
I think the compounds used today were hards and mediums. My info suggests that Vettel, Kimi and Nico all set their best times on the medium while Nando set his best time on the hard tire
Thanks for that, still very very impressive considering the length of the run, a lot longer than the others All in all a very good day and lots for the Tifosi to be happy about.
I don't think any team drained the tanks and ran a banger type lap today. Everyone had big tire deg too. F138 is a good car, they will have success with it. My only concern for F138 is how close it already appears to be to its development ceiling. F138 has every bob, whistle, double gurney tabs on the diffuser and vortex generator in the trick book already employed on the thing. Where is Ferrari going to go with this car now? Is it fundamentall fast or is it only fast because of all the extra 'stuff' sitting on the thing now, I suspect the latter actually. It's the 'vanilla' cars out there that are currently quick minus all the trick gizmos already in place. Lotus, Williams, Mercedes have my eye.
You mean like when they set the car on fire and blew a gearbox at Jerez lol. Red Bull and Mclaren seem to be the reliability kings so far.
No doubt. It would be nice to know fuel loads but it only keeps us arm chair warriors speculating....would like to hear from Fred re his impressions of the car. Niko says the car is faster than last year's car but it wouldn't be hard to improve on that POS. They can only go up....
F138 looked good on heavy loads on long runs, tire deg is rough though. Looking forward to race sims this week. And how was W03 Technically bad? Other than bad tire deg it was very fast until Monaco. W03 was the first car ever to hydraulically connect all corners of suspension, brilliant achievement and I guarantee everyone has either copied it or are trying to copy it. Sorry to be such a flag waver for Merc but I have to give credit where it's due, and that suspension system is the class of F1.
No reason to apologize for your team support, thats why we are all on here, but the car ON THE WHOLE was a mess, technical innovations or no technical innovations. I hope they put it right this year and finish second to Ferrari......
Even if the MB is fast, they won't be able to keep up in the development race. We've seen it for years going all the way back to when this team was BAR.
Fernando does not sound happy with F138 Alonso from BBC Sport "The feeling in the car was OK, more or less as expected," said Alonso. "It's a continuation of the Brazil car [from the end of last season], let's say, more or less the same feeling. "I have the same seat, the same pedals, the same everything so when you jump in the car it should be more or less the same as Brazil, so this is at least something good, not like last year when we drove for the first time we were a little bit surprised on the bad side. "There is a lot of work to do in the next days for tyres, aerodynamics, experimental things that we need to do in the car. We need to do a lot of mileage to prove the cars are strong enough to race."
True, but their development was horrendous last year(yes I know about how the DDRS compromised them or whatever). I guess we'll see. I'm just not a believer.
