F1 testing in Spain

[Tazio]

Good obsrvations!
Not a knock, but don't kid yourself, they are also hiding things. With issues involving finding a true base line which has been accomplished I'm led to believe.
They have had the perfect reason to fall off the radar in that respect. I would be worried about falling into that trap. Best to see what happens in the final practices, and the start of the season. It's best all around to just wait and see what happens in the first few races

[driveace]

Well according to the papers here in OZ ,Bernie is hoping that Seb does not run away from the others so early in the season.He would prefer it to be decided on the last race of the season.Seb probably does not agree !
i get the feeling there is a lot of sandbagging,and we will not know any ones full potential before Melbourne

[scaliwag]

Here's my three penney's worth on Mclaren, they stated at the launch, the car would be very different come the first race, since then they have stated they have a major update for the next test, now I noted JB's best time on Friday was set on hard tyre's and he wasn't that far off the pace setters, whereas all the top times at both tests so far have been set on mediums, soft, or super soft tyre's perhaps that's the reason LH & JB have a smile on their faces.

Regards scaliwag.

[airshifter]

i get the feeling there is a lot of sandbagging,and we will not know any ones full potential before Melbourne

There is always some sandbagging in testing, and I completely agree that we won't know who is where until the season starts. Sometimes the final practice sessions will show the teams hand more, but not always.

[jens]

I'd say 'sandbagging' as such is vastly exaggerated, at least in a planned manner. Those people are professionals and the primary goal of testing is to understand and develop the car - and for doing it efficiently you need to run the car in optimal F1 racing conditions. There is no time to fool others, because it leads aside the main attention of preparing your own car for the season and is actually distracting for yourself.

[Tazio]

I'd say 'sandbagging' as such is vastly exaggerated, at least in a planned manner. Those people are professionals and the primary goal of testing is to understand and develop the car - and for doing it efficiently you need to run the car in optimal F1 racing conditions. There is no time to fool others, because it leads aside the main attention of preparing your own car for the season and is actually distracting for yourself.

So you're saying Red Bull is a midfield team? Jens it depends on what your definition of sandbagging is. I think holding back on your ultimate pace is (by definition) sandbagging. They will show something close to it by the end of testing than it won't be sandbagging.

[mstillhere]

And why would anybody show what they are holding in their hands ahead of time? There are very few chances to test this year, as I mentioned earlier. So, I if were a team manager I would want to test my new car as much as possible.

[SGWilko]

One of the main aims now that testing mileage is quite restrictive is to ensure the windtunnel and sim numbers correlate to track data. If you get that licked the battle is half won. Then you need to look at weights and how this affects rake and suspension etc. Then tyre degradation, and how good your car is at warming the tyres and preserving them.

I don't really see there is any need to bolt on a set of super softs, stick a thible full of fuel in and blitz a lap - what would you learn?

The teams can happily run fuyll chat on their own fuel loads as no-one will know what fuel is in. You can ease a little on the straights to 'inflate' a laptime....

[jens]

So you're saying Red Bull is a midfield team? Jens it depends on what your definition of sandbagging is. I think holding back on your ultimate pace is (by definition) sandbagging. They will show something close to it by the end of testing than it won't be sandbagging.

Why midfield? Everyone thinks that RBR is a frontrunner. They don't need to top the timesheets to make the insiders understand, what is really going on. Red Bull has mostly been testing with high fuel loads. It doesn't mean that they are specifically "holding back" rather than just following their testing programme, like learning about tyre management with full tanks.

Definition of sandbagging? I'd say an attempt to make yourself look weaker than you really are. Insiders don't look at the fastest times anyway. Much more telling information are race simulations (of course some things need to be taken into account there as well - like which tyre compounds was anyone using). There is no need to play games during such 'simulation' as team needs to understand, how exactly would the car behave over a Grand Prix. And RBR left a good impression there.

One reason, why Ferrari is still very difficult to rate, is that unlike others they haven't done any race simulations yet. Just shorter stints with unknown fuel loads. But I don't consider this as sandbagging, because they have a different testing programme due to new car and difficulties they have faced with it. They have felt the need to try out lots of different settings, so they couldn't afford to spend time on a very long run. But getting a race simulation under your belt before the start of the season is important, so time is tight and they shall do it next week.

[wedge]

I'd say 'sandbagging' as such is vastly exaggerated, at least in a planned manner. Those people are professionals and the primary goal of testing is to understand and develop the car - and for doing it efficiently you need to run the car in optimal F1 racing conditions. There is no time to fool others, because it leads aside the main attention of preparing your own car for the season and is actually distracting for yourself.

Testing is primarily driving consistently.

You learn nothing in optimal racing conditions ie. driving on the limit. It is often said that this was weakness of Ronnie Peterson and even Schumi too because they can drive round a car's problems - hence the need for driving in a consistent manner.

RBR traditionally sandbag in GP weekends and it never hurt them. They look nothing special in FP until Vettel does his magic in Q3.

If you expose your speed then why draw needless attention? RBR tried to counter this by using stickers of fake exhausts! Ferrari admit their car has problems but then to what extent?