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It looks like Alonso is not completely happy with car. On the positive side the car is finally able to bring the tiers to temperature very quickly. And this was a major issue in the past years. For the bad news, Alonso complains about a certain lack of grip of the car when exiting corners. Curiously enough Vettel also was mentioning the same issue with his car.
Just look at every stint how quickly the tires fall off as suggested by discernibly slower lap times during the stints duration, and the disparity between each lap is unacceptable. It is not unmanageable and it is only egregious on the fronts or so I have heard.
Timing: 22 february, wednesday. Catalunya, Spain.
I think this is something they will be able to fine tune, and dial out without sacrificing race pace. I hope
On the flip side Ferrari should be a good prime tire car, and who knows, they may be able to avoid their biggest shortcoming of last season, which is being road-kill in the last stint at the end of the race when they have to run hard compounds.
Feb.23 (GMM)Lotus left after taking part in the first two days of testing this week…That leaves two days of non-participation. I think it would be benevolent of the rest of the field to give Lotus one extra day, but no more. What is the reasoning behind positively reinforcing negative behavior?Quote:
Embattled Lotus will ask its formula one rivals for permission to conduct a three-day private test after it has resolved a chassis flaw.
The former Renault team pulled out of this week's Barcelona test after the unspecified problem was identified early during the opening day's running on Tuesday.
With pre-season preparations limited to just three tests in 2012, next week's Barcelona running will be the last before the championship begins in Australia.
:s ailor: Next thing you know they will be insisting that FOTA honors Kimi's markers to support his gelato habit.
If I were Caterham - I'd politely suggest they go and whistle.......Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Alcatraz
I think McLaren are going well, but Red Bull are still looking like the team to beat.Quote:
Originally Posted by henners88
:s ailor: Aye! :s pin:Quote:
Originally Posted by SGWilko
I see that at Barcelona some teams have finally started to concentrate on getting some speed out of the car after being at the back at Jerez. Mostly Sauber (2nd yesterday) and Williams today. I think the lap of Williams (1:22.391) was pretty much a qualifying sim - also on supersoft tyres as reported. Others haven't shown their maximum yet, so we can only guess, how much faster the rivals can go.
Looking at the comments around, Red Bull seems to be the car to beat (hardly surprising!). Arguably McLaren runs close, but it is anyone's guess, how close exactly. Is it closer than last year or perhaps even able to match RBR? Ferrari has improved, but are still behind the leaders. As is Mercedes. Lotus with their chassis issues is now a complete unknown - how much are they going to fall?! Midfield is still hard to rank, but it looks like Caterham is finding it overwhelmingly difficult to threaten the midfield even in their third season of F1.
Obviously a low fuel run, but Maldonado's time was half a second faster than he managed in Q2 at Barcelona last year, so they've made some improvement (thankfully)!
Incidentally Maldonado's effort in qualifying for the 2011 Spanish GP was absolutely fine, he reached Q3! And pole-time then was 1.20,9.Quote:
Originally Posted by christophulus
So even though at Jerez a few weeks ago Mercedes was fastest with its 2011 car, it looks like in the long-run 2012 cars may well turn out to be faster than its predecessors.
It looks like the FIA will look into it. The "culprits" seem to be RB and McLaren. I put culprits with quotation marks since there are no culprits, according to the FIA, during pre-season practice sessions. Any team can test anything they want legal or illegal. However, all creativity will stop on Fri before the Melbourne GP where all cars, their mapping and their exhausts will be closely checked. I wonder what's going to happen.