1.20.817 from Hamilton on MEDIUMS. This car is fast. that's nearly 3 seconds quicker than W03 around Barcelona qualy last year and almost a full second quicker (.900) than his own pole time last year. Lewis then further raised the bar setting a 1:20.5 on softs. BGP001 times here......
BBC Sport - Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton in 'race mode' for start of season I believe the suspension is the reason for their speed. Mechanical grip is supposedly just pants. Hinting that W04 is better than mp4-27......
Massa banged out a 1:21.673 then did 6 or 7 laps, I believe on mediums. The thing here is, Mercedes didn't just bang out their quick laps and head back in the pits. No, they did some 6 or 7 laps as well.
Red Bull brought a new chassis today. Not much action from them. Lewis has done 5 outings where he did 7 or 8 laps and during each outing he started below 1:21. Grosjean is there now. The car broke on him so be hasn't done much. Force India ran a couple 1 lap qualifying sims and the quickest they saw was a 1:21.6 on sorts.
Fernando confirmed my suspicions last night that none of the top teams found near a second over the winter.
His quickest time was set with the 'vanilla' soft tires for the season, the prototype compound was a medium compound and he set a 1:20.8 with those.
wheel nut vid [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGP2wV5k8qg]F1 Test 2 at Barcelona Day 3 2013 - Felipe Massa Loses a Wheel - YouTube[/ame]
this is rich Lewis. nice try lol. he's smiling ear to ear. what's funny is he has gone from being the craziest man in F1 to not-so-crazy or not-crazy-at-all in the span of 4 hours this morning. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXCNBXco-EE]F1 Test 2 at Barcelona Day 3 2013 - Lewis Hamilton Interview about Mercedes Pace - YouTube[/ame]
Main write up of today here: Link Gallery of photos here: Link Gallery of paddock pictures here: Link Enjoy!
Thanks for the write up. I'd love to do this some time, dream come true. Unfortunately, I wouldn't know where to begin to make it happen.
Williams just duped RB's ramp-style exhaust and side tunnel, that makes 3 teams with identical coanda layouts: RB Lotus Williams http://img1.auto-motor-und-sport.de/Pastor-Maldonado-Williams-Formel-1-Test-Barcelona-2-Maerz-2013-19-fotoshowImageNew-426cb4e1-665226.jpg
Couple of positive points for the F138 from yesterday and this morning. 1) Tire deg, almost opposite to early fears, it seams the F138 tire management could be a key advantage to the team/car again this year. Yesterday, when drivers tried super-softs, only Felipe was able to improve his best time - all other cars destroyed the tire before it even completed a flying lap. Also, this exchange on Sky:- Question for Johnny: What do you think to the Ferrari this winter test? The one thing I have noticed, which I think is a very positive thing, has been that when I looked at the tyres of Felipe Massa after a long-ish run yesterday, they looked to be in very good condition and this could be a sign of a well-balanced Ferrari that could reap dividends in this year's Championship. But let's see...I'm sitting on the fence for now. 2) At lunch today, Nico leads with a 1:20.130 from Nando with a 1:20.494, but according to Sky and @Truzonef1 " ...The W04 used Rosberg to DRS in all lines and Alonso F138 only the back straight # F1... " This was also reported for Lewis's time yesterday. Perhaps Merc are seriously testing their DDRS, but either way it really makes our performance look very positive.
W04 looking at front tire wake patterns, measuring with a sensor array. Lots of subtle changes Ferrari looks nice today Image Unavailable, Please Login
