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Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
Vancha 22 February, 2012 19:56
Valtteri Bottas reckons he can give Williams what it wants on race weekends after his first run in new Formula 1 car

Valtteri Bottas: "I agree with Bruno that the slow speed [corners] is still something we can improve on. Today, we learned more about the handling in them. I think we know more today than we did yesterday."

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
Francesc 22 February, 2012 20:00
Good they keep on learning about the slow stuff issue.

http://www.formula1.com/wi/0x0/sutton/2011/ded1222fe166.jpg
http://www.formula1.com/wi/0x0/sutton/2011/dms1222fe306.jpg

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
Bond 22 February, 2012 20:04
Quote:
j-s
...However that 3s gap to the fastest time is not flattering. Quite embarrassing, in fact.
I think that mechanical grip issue is significant.

Not to sound any alarm bells & just speaking generally here: but from the little I understand of F1 engineering, mechanical setup is really the last 1% tweak you can do on a car.

So if the aero & platform layout isn't already more or less doing its expected job & should have mostly translated to the track from the design tunnel; the mechanical tweaking will do very little to aid the car's balance.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 22/02/2012 20:09 by Bond.

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
drunkmunky 22 February, 2012 20:14
Quote:
raiden
I really like Pastor's comments! smiling smiley
It is really nice to complete so much laps with the new car..

Pastor has some cockiness to him that gives us a glimpse into his confidence in the fw34.

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
j-s 22 February, 2012 21:29
I was thinking that spending 6 out of the 12 days doing 10-15 lap stints is a lot. RBR is starting to do full race sims, most teams are already testing performance through 3-4 lap stints, using super softs, etc... While Williams goes through what looks like a series of basic system checks. That's why I think the mechanical grip issue is a biggie.

Sorry if I'm a bit sullen today but 6 consecutive days of being eons off the pace is starting to get to me. Whatever they're doing it's not inspiring any confidence, at least not to me.

Only 6 more days to go, I hope we see some flashes of performance! I'm still optimistic.

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
TerraNova19 22 February, 2012 21:31
Analysis
Gary Anderson
BBC Formula 1 technical analyst
Everyone expects Red Bull to be disguising their true pace in winter testing, but from Wednesday's running it does not look as if they are. Sebastian Vettel's fastest lap was a 1:22.891 and when he started a race simulation run in the afternoon he was lapping in the 1:29s. That six-second margin is about what you'd expect it to be from a full load to a low-fuel run - so Vettel's fastest lap does appear to be on pretty low fuel. The off-set between Hamilton's laps on a race-type run and his fastest overall was about the same as Vettel's, and the margin between the race-distance lap-time averages and one-off laps was very similar for both drivers. All of which suggests the gap you see between Red Bull and McLaren on headline lap times is not far off the real one.

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
TerraNova19 22 February, 2012 21:41
Nico Hulkenberg sets pace at Barcelona test

By Andrew Benson
Chief F1 writer
Force India's Nico Hulkenberg set the pace on the second day of the second pre-season test.
The German was 0.040 seconds ahead of Sauber's Sergio Perez. Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel was third.
Hulkenberg and Perez set their times on the fastest 'super-soft' tyres, while Vettel was on 'softs'.
Fernando Alonso's Ferrari jumped from fifth to fourth fastest with a late lap, while Lewis Hamilton's McLaren ended up sixth.
Ten of the 12 teams are running at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya until Friday.


All those taking part in the test are using their 2012 cars apart from Marussia, who have raced as Virgin for the last two years. Their new car is scheduled to run for the first time at the final test, also at the Circuit de Catalunya, starting on 1 March.
Lotus, who raced as Renault last year, had to abandon running on Tuesday after discovering a major problem with their chassis, while struggling HRT's new car is not ready after failing some mandatory crash tests.
Hamilton was extremely positive about the progress McLaren had made with their new car.
"The car behaves really well in the high-speed corners - I think the baseline of our car is higher than it was last year - and it's better overall at high-speed," he said.
The presence of Hulkenberg and Perez as the fastest drivers - along with Toro Rosso's Daniel Ricciardo in fifth place - underlines the difficulty of predicting form at the first race in Australia next month from headline lap times in testing.
Teams prepare for all possible eventualities - and with 10kg of fuel equating to about 0.35secs a lap and cars needing about 145kg for a race, there is a wide spread of performance and teams keep their programmes secret.
Tyres are also a major differentiator - supplier Pirelli says there is about a 0.6secs pace differential between the four compounds, super-soft, soft, medium and hard.
Vettel, world champion for the last two years, emerged from the first pre-season test in Jerez in southern Spain two weeks ago looking like the man to beat again in 2012 and he has continued that form in Barcelona.
Apart from being the fastest leading driver on both days, the 24-year-old German also completed what appeared to be effectively a race simulation run in the afternoon, doing 70 laps interspersed with three quick pit stops.
Vettel said: "We are on the right road with the car. The first impressions at the last test were fine. The car reacted the way we expected.
"We'll spend the coming days trying to make improvements, find more performance and make the car faster. But so far, so good."
Hamilton also seemed to do a race-distance run - albeit one punctuated by longer pit stops than Vettel's. And an analysis of lap times throughout the day seems to suggest that the Red Bull was the best part of a second quicker than the McLaren on Wednesday.
Alonso's best lap on Wednesday was about half a second faster than he managed on Tuesday while Hamilton was about 0.6secs down on his best Tuesday time.
This is an important test for Ferrari after they admitted in Jerez that they were "not happy" with the performance of their car, which is a radical departure in terms of design from last year.
Alonso admitted that he felt the team still needed to find some pace.
"At the moment we don't know exactly where we are," he said. "I think maybe we are not the fastest but definitely we are not the slowest."
Nico Rosberg has taken the new Mercedes over from Schumacher on Wednesday - they are the only team who have not already run their new car in Jerez.
Also running on Wednesday were Williams reserve driver Valtteri Bottas, Marussia's rookie Charles Pic and Caterham's new signing Vitaly Petrov

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
Marco Cardoso 22 February, 2012 21:58
His everyone woried in this forum.. this is testing.. whe are problably still only learning the car, and at least the car seems consistent and reliable judging be the mileage we´ve done so far.. the speed will problably onle be showned in the last days of testing or even Australia.. Chill!

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
erratic 22 February, 2012 22:32
Every year, same optimism, same hope, same rationalisation of testing times, same end result when the flag drops.

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
j-s 22 February, 2012 22:47
The Williams SAT Exam

Fast testing = slow racing;
Slow testing = ?

a) slower racing
b) normal racing
c) faster racing

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
drunkmunky 23 February, 2012 01:04
Our race stints are pretty good. We're faster than FI. Hulkenberg was all over the place, up down, left right.

I don't think the car is a brick.

The Mercedes is pretty fast!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 23/02/2012 01:06 by drunkmunky.

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
FrankDC 23 February, 2012 01:31
I'm on the board "not doing any comment till i see first Qualify" tongue sticking out smiley

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
K1 23 February, 2012 04:19
welcome on board FrankDC

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
AlanJones 23 February, 2012 06:18
Quote:
j-s
The Williams SAT Exam
Fast testing = slow racing;
Slow testing = ?

a) slower racing
b) normal racing
c) faster racing

Uh uh uh!! May I answer to win the fridge?
I would sayyyy.. A!




https://i.ibb.co/BsYLL8h/1992-Formula1-Williams-FW14-B-001-1440-01.jpg

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
TerraNova19 23 February, 2012 08:14
Maldo:

[yfrog.com]

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
TerraNova19 23 February, 2012 08:27
German publication TZ suggests that we might have changes on engine softwares before start of season due to some "workaround" found by teams

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
Beer_Stalker 23 February, 2012 09:20
1:25.419 and P1 for a whole 5 mins!

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
Anderis 23 February, 2012 09:29
Our reporters from Poland, who are at Catalunya right now, report that somebody in Williams's guest room is playing packman for two hours. grinning smiley



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 23/02/2012 09:31 by Anderis.

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
Beer_Stalker 23 February, 2012 09:32
1:24.993

Our fastest time this week.

Re: Barcelona testing 21st-24th February
crusty_bread 23 February, 2012 09:32
So just as the FW34 has been "eating" up the miles...

Current Page: 9 of 20

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