SKY assessment of the testing for 2018 -...
+1 I love rain at Melbourne but also hate it as we never get a true picture of what the pecking order is....leaving us to wait 2-3 weeks longer to find out still! (usually a wet aussie race is normally followed by another wet race even then! lol)
Pre-season testing is a world unto itself, as much fun as it is to watch, we don't know enough to make any sense of tires, fuel, set-up, engine mapping, etc. etc. And I'm with Bas Jaski above that Australia by itself only gives us a picture of performance on one track, so does not a full season make! (remembering the few years ago when McLaren grabbed some podium positions!)
I'm no expert however I did wonder if extending the Ferrari wheelbase compromised the great speed and performance it showed last year.
I understand the opposite. The longer wheelbase gave them more room for aero devices to be placed between the front and rear wheels. The idea is the drag is less and the downforce more.
So they are calling this oil condensation vapour. As to what type of oil(engine oil??) this is? Can anyone elaborate why the SF71-H is doing this? (having to do with 1.2ltrs per 100km down to .9ltrs per 100km???) I have come across any technical article explaining this very thing.
I meant hat tongue and cheek of course. Meaning we don’t know just how big a leap they made. A little poetic license please.
Who are we kidding?-this year will be an MB cakewalk. The most interesting thing to me will be Honda’s progress as I think they will be supplying RB next year if the engines do well in the TR.
I hope not, but probably. The fact that Mercedes didn't feel the need to do a "quick" run suggests to me that they must be pretty damn sure of the capabilities they have. Or else maybe they are really as slow as they are showing . . .
I wonder how often Ferrari will be doing this "venting" at the start of the season? Will the FIA or marshalls even allow this during FP or Quali given all the action and personnel in the pitlane? Are they going to have to "screen" the area for safety reasons during this process? Or will they vent this pressure during FP, Quali, and the race?? watching Vettel going backwards is cool.....que Malaysia GP 2017. F1 2018 Testing Day 7: Ferrari Smoke, Sebastian Vettel Reverse In Pitlane & Spies on Toro Rosso
No I think it will be a fight this year. It was a fight last year all the way up to the summer break. Then Ferrari cracked.
Last year the Benz was finicky and that allowed Ferrari to close the gap; not thinking MB will make the same mistake twice. Don't forget that the man who made the Ferrari good last year (James Allison) now works for MB....
It was'nt just Allison. Rory Byrne contributed also to the 2018 car and is also contributing to the 2019 car currently.
I believe some other teams will take some points away this year. With the Mercs always 1-2 qualifying its easy to get free of possible accidents in the first lap. Look at Max last year. If Max can get a pole here or there and Vettel or Kimi getting up, Merc will have to start farther down and take more risks.
Interesting to see the teams compared against themselves. No surprise about the top two. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Biggest loser has to be Williams without a doubt. Even with the Mercedes engine, their performance in testing has been less than ideal. I’ll go ahead and make a bold prediction and say that Toro Rosso will be Top 4 behind Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull.
My prediction is they'll be competing with Williams and Sauber for 8th/9th/10th since the other two have have Merc/Ferrari PU's. Williams is SOL with their driver line up. Wonder how they keep the engineers fully motivated.
LOL. Williams has been going backwards, even with the Mercedes PU. Sauber hasn’t been any better either. Where have you been?? Toro Rosso has been punching above its Class even with the reliability problems of the Renault. STR engineering + what looks like solid performance/reliability from the Honda will certainly put them towards the front half of the grid.
Williams in general is screwed. No money to attract talent equals a long gradual decline with no end in sight. They haven't had a real win for 13 years, 4 months, 15 days. The Maldonado luck win does not count.
We have differing views on where Honda probably are at this point. As a huge Honda fan I'm happy that they are able to run reliably but Helmut Marko said they are still behind the rest in performance. It's testing so we can't know for sure, but McLaren's 2017/2018 improvement is massive by any standard (even accounting for surface change) and suggests the Renault has been a big improvement. Sauber meanwhile now finally has a current spec Ferrari engine. They won't be at STR chassis level, but STR isn't exactly a strong team either. The last races with Sainz were Malaysis and Japan. Malaysia they qualified 14th. Japan they qualified 15th. When accounting for how much more powerful the Ferrari will be compared to the Honda, there's a strong possibility STR will be last. The wildcard is Williams' drivers' performance offset by that beast in the back.
STR's problem is their drivers and presumably their engine still....it looks like the Honda has improved significantly (or just functions better in an uncompromised chassis). Their chassis/aero appears to work quite well in pre-season testing. There's even rumours that Mclaren is getting slightly nervous. Their saving grace (Mclaren's) is that they have far superior drivers. IMO this is STR's worst driver line up since 2007 (before they got Vettel in, obviously). Maybe Gasly and Hartley where thrown in at the deep end last year, but we didn't see guys like Ocon and Vandoorne (Bahrain 2016) struggle when they suddenly got a race seat.
