Barcelona Testing 2018

This still might be the best time of the season, since we don't have Mercedes running away with things! One of the short videos on the F1 website was about three Polish fans that were in Barcelona to cheer on Kubica, so seeing those three guys get all fired up over testing and meeting their favorite driver is kind of how I feel so far, can't wait for the real racing and cheering on the red team and my other favorite drivers and teams.

 

TR may have changed 3 engines but none of them failed during the practice or while doing race distances. We don't know why they did this. It might be to tear them down and see what is going on inside. There's no penalty now for changing engines so my guess is Honda is desperate to figure out if they have reliability or not.

Opening up an engine after 90 laps may be one way to see what their status us. Or, sending it back to Japan for inspection.

It's a guess but they are a lot better off not having the damn car on the track like last year.

 

Exactly. They have done race distances and then some, so I'm not worried at all for them. STR Honda are better off than McHonda last year, or even McLaren this year lol

 

https://www.crash.net/f1/news/891290/1/gasly-toro-rosso-making-honda-technicians-smile-again

Gasly: Toro Rosso making Honda technicians smile again

Pierre Gasly says a flawless pre-season Formula 1 testing programme at the start of Toro Rosso’s new partnership with Honda has resorted a feel-good factor for the Japanese manufacturer.

Gasly produced a trouble-free 169 laps in the Toro Rosso Honda STR13 on his final day of pre-season testing at Circuit de Catalunya and had enough time in hand to target a qualifying simulation in the final hour of track action. The French driver’s 1m 18.363s using the ultrasoft Pirelli tyres secured third place on the final timesheet just over a second off of Sebastain Vettel's new lap record at the Spanish circuit for Ferrari.

Gasly says the mood in the Italian team camp is rising with every day of untroubled testing and feels it is providing the Honda technicians with a much-needed boost after a tough three years back in F1 during its previous partnership with McLaren.

“I think everybody in the team has been working in the same direction and that’s super-important,” Gasly said. “There’s very good communication between the two parties, it’s been nice to see some of the Japanese technicians smile too.

“These are just the first two tests together, so when we’ll get into the season we’ll be able to work together even better.”

 

Bouiller said today Mac does have cooling issues which is why the turbo blew today. He blamed it on "an aggressive design"


If you look at the photos, this is the EXACT SAME SPOT they were using blowers on in the pit stop fiasco yesterday. They know they have a serious problem.

He also said they "had it under control"-- to which I laughed out loud. Yes, having men with blowers on your rear cowling instead of the brakes is certainly "control"

 

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

There's trouble. Right here in River City
That starts with T and rhymes with P and that stands for Pirelli

 

Wow, at the end of the day Alonso, Sainz and Ricciardo jump way up!

Two weeks to go!

 

Barcelona:

What a beautiful city.

 

tons of laps for Mercedes, Haas on 180 today looks good.
I forget what happened to Stroll today, only 27 laps.

 

Buckle up for another year of Mercedes domination

 

Boulier is saying to expect McLaren in the mid-field with Renault and Haas.