Lewis likes it. Very much a drivers car now. Love it Lewis Hamilton believes his driving style is well-suited to Formula 1's new technical regulations. Turbocharged V6 power units plus a host of chassis and aerodynamic changes have greatly altered the driveability of this year's cars, with drivers having to cope with increased levels of torque and less grip. Having started to explore the potential of the new W05 at this week's Bahrain test, which saw him top the timesheets on the penultimate day, the 2008 World Champion has been left with largely positive feelings. "It was nice to be able to put together a good lap today because generally speaking there seems to be less grip available than last year," said Hamilton, who lapped within two seconds of last year's pole position time. "I'm looking forward to completing a race simulation [during the final pre-season test] next week as we didn't quite get to finish it today. We're trying to find any issues we can now to prevent them happening during a race situation, so from that perspective it's a positive that we were able to find and fix something again today. "The car seems to be responding well to my style of driving and the power unit is looking promising, with all of the Mercedes-powered team completing good mileage. We won't know where we are for definite until we get to Melbourne so we're just continuing to focus on our run programmes, keep positive and look forward. "The team has done a great job to get where we are today so we just need to keep that going."
Bahrain F1 test: McLaren buzz back says Jenson Button after GP sim - F1 news - AUTOSPORT.com "While Button admits his team does not have the faster car at the moment, he believes its reliability is a very positive sign ahead of the first race. "We know we are not the quickest. We know we are not slow either, and the great thing is that we have a lot of laps under our belt," said Button when asked about the car's pace by AUTOSPORT."
Hamilton's stint, compared to Vettel's stint from the begining of Bahrain GP 2013 HAM VET 1:40.545 1:44.636 1:40.954 1:42.833 1:40.785 1:41.960 1:41.686 1:41.417 1:41.396 1:41.600 1:41.020 1:41.569 1:41.701 1:41.930 1:41.518 1:42.122 1:41.609 1:42.161 1:42.205 1:44.851 1:42.039 1:42.637
There has never been a precedence for this "bell/mushroom" design because there has always been a beam wing in the back, so the arms have always been designed to allow max airflow to the beam wing. This banned beam wing / blowing of the diffusers generated way more downforce and had minimal drag. The bells generate significant drag and much less downforce and would have been disadvantageous for blowing the diffuser. Not only that, it is still designed as being suspension as its primary function and aero as it's secondary benefit. I am pretty sure it will stay throughout the season. Teams will protest it only so they can get a better understanding of how it works so they can see how they can emulate it for their own cars.
If they banned the mass damper as an aero device, they will ban this too. Mclaren consciously went out of their way to design a suspension system that affects aero. They could have achieved the same geometry as being specific to a 'suspension system only' in a number of different ways, but they went with this aero affecting way instead. That argument alone is enough to ban those arms.
Red Bull will be testing tomorrow. They had a mechanical fault and have to repair/replace items. They are not leaving per Autosport.
Ferrari had the highest top speed today which was some 22kph faster than 2013, they have power. 336.4kph acheived today followed by Mclaren with 330kph
F1 Test Bahrain 2014 - Nico Rosberg Testing W05 On track (Engine Sounds ONLY) - YouTube [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fL3kkTZi_4]F1 2014 Fernando Alonso in Action V6 Engine Sound - Bahrain Pre-Season Tests - YouTube[/ame]
Ferrari are looking good. I am conservative with this assessment until we see their race performance.
Mercedes changed something in their exhaust. The car has a much more "throaty" sound to it than previously. Much, much better noise now, imo.
I thought this was an interesting pic. Lots of electricity onboard. That's how you're supposed to exit a car in contact with electric lines. Jump as far away as possible to avoid arcing. I wonder if that's what motivated this leap.
I think Mercedes is just ahead in their program, which is a good thing, to be sure. But it means they're probably starting to test performance ahead of the other teams. Ferrari, for example, has already said they won't start to test performance until the next test.
Fernando Alonso says Ferrari is “not as good as we would like at this point” at the halfway stage of pre-season testing. Ferrari has looked like the closest challenger to the Mercedes-powered cars so far in Jerez and Bahrain, with Red Bull and the Renault power unit struggling. However, while Alonso said the mileage over the first two days in Bahrain was encouraging he said there were lots of areas where Ferrari needs to improve. “It's important to do laps; we learn things and from these two days we discovered some more issues that the car is having,” Alonso said. “Every lap there is something and in the electronic side we have so many things this year that we can tune it a little bit better or improve it. So slowly I think we are getting in to a position where we are more comfortable. ”We are not as good as we would like at this point and there are still many things to discover and to improve but at least we are able to do 160 laps in two days again without big issues in the car. This is good for the team, for the motivation of everybody.” With a clear pecking order still unknown, Alonso admitted that the way the first six days of testing has panned out leads him to believe the first few races will be a lottery. “It's definitely strange, definitely challenging for everyone. It's not easy to bet this year – for the people who normally bet – on Australia. I think it will be extremely tough for everyone to know and have an idea of what can happen in Australia and in the first couple of races. “Our target should be to finish the race; if we finish the race in the first three or four grands prix then I think that automatically means a good result because not many teams will finish, and that is challenging. It seems easy but it's challenging.
It's only testing. We will see new bits at the next test. The encouraging thing for Ferrari is that their new wind tunnel seems to be spot on in terms of data correlation; this has been their weakness over the last few years.
