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Barcelona test statistics

February 28th, 2010 at 07:22pm Under Racing

These are the fastest combined times from the Barcelona F1 test for each driver.

Also below is the data on the total amount of distance covered by each driver, team and engine in the tests.

Best times from the Barcelona test

Times from all four days combined.

Distance covered at all tests in 2010

Data from three days at Valencia, eight at Jerez and four at Barcelona (not counting private tests):

Read more: Jerez test 2 statistics

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Barcelona testing, day 4: Hamilton fastest in the wind and sun

February 28th, 2010 at 07:21pm Under Racing

While it was at least sunny on this last day of off-season testing in Barcelona, multiple teams complained that the wind made running difficult.  Force India, for example, said early in the day, “Adjustments being made to programme today due to the high winds and bad track conditions –…

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Branson, Fernandes & Mosley hit back at Ferrari

February 28th, 2010 at 07:13pm Under Racing

Ferrari’s “Horse Whisperer” column has certainly raised some eyebrows around the world. Fans, teams, reporters and blogs have all discussed the most recent edition that took aim at former FIA president Max Mosley and the new teams of F1.
As a long-time Ferrari fan I must admit…

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2010 Ducati Multistrada - first ride countdown

February 28th, 2010 at 07:56am Under Motorbikes

MCN Executive Editor Phil West is in Lanzarote primed to ride all three versions of the new 2010 Ducati Multistrada 1200: Multistrada 1200 - base model Multistrada 1200S Touring - gets active adjustable suspension system, panniers and centre stand Multistrada 1200S…

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Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes closely matched in race distance simulations

February 28th, 2010 at 07:56am Under Racing

Three of the top teams of 2010 went head-to-head in race simulations in Spain

Tomorrow is the final day of F1 testing before the first race of 2010 and the question everyone wants to know the answer to is this: Who’s got the fastest car?

Ferrari have been rumoured to be the favourites for some time but the race distance simulation run in largely dry conditions at the Circuit de Catalunya this afternoon shows rivals McLaren and Mercedes are right up there with them.

Massa, Button and Rosberg race distance simulations, 27th February

Three of the teams tipped to be among the F1 front runners this year all ran race distance simulations at around the same time at the Circuit de Catalunya today.

With no red flags until the very end of their runs the simulations were largely uninterrupted. Only a brief rain shower drove Nico Rosberg into the pits briefly but he returned to the track within a few minutes.

Rosberg, along with Jenson Button and Felipe Massa, each completed 65 or more continuous laps of the track. They will have to complete 66 laps at the Spanish Grand Prix at the circuit in May.

The graph above shows their lap times throughout their stints. Rosberg began his stint slightly early, but after his long pit stop due to the rain he returned to the track and more or less synched up with Massa and Hamilton’s race simulations. You can see Massa and Hamilton’s graphs peak earlier at around the same time (slowing down because of the rain) while Rosberg has a later, much higher peak.

Each driver pitted twice during their stint though Button made his first stop quite a bit later than Massa. Massa did a long and impressively consistent middle stint.

Late in the simulation Button’s times dropped off, which was at least partly due to traffic.

There is a considerable degree of overlap between the three lines which suggest the three teams are fairly close on performance. Massa’s long middle stint suggests to me that the rumours Ferrari has a slight advantage over the others are accurate.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to see exactly how far each car could run for. The simulations ended when Rosberg’s car stopped, causing a red flag. Given how quickly the team were able to get the car running again afterwards it seems likely the W01 simply ran out of fuel.

We wait to see what the likes of Red Bull can achieve over a similar distance. And of course there will be further changes to the cars between now and the first race of the year.

But I take this as an encouraging sign that three of the leading teams are near to each other on pace, and we could be in for an excitingly close-fought championship in 2010.

What’s your take on the race distance simulations? Have your say in the comments.

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Barrichello tips Wiliams to surprise

February 28th, 2010 at 07:56am Under Racing

Rubens Barrichello believes his Williams FW32 is a dark horse for success in 2010.

Talking to reporters after today’s test at the Circuit de Catalunya he said:

The main topic of the first three tests, at Valencia and Jerez, was to absolutely nail reliability. And we have done that very, very well.

We knew we would have a different car here, the bits are not fully on the car just yet, so there’ll be bits coming for Bahrain just like normal. But I’m quite happy with the progress we have made.

We have improved a good second from Valencia. I think Williams-Cosworth can be one of the teams to surprise this year.
Rubens Barrichello

But he also cautioned against reading too much into testing times:

Nico’s time yesterday was the very first time we tried low fuel in the car and for the very first time we surprised a few people. So all of a sudden Williams is being talked about in the paddock.

But like I said this winter it is very easy to become the hero of the test. If I took fuel out every test I would have been first in every test. At Bahrain we’ll talk again but it’s really hard to know where people are.

I have no prediction for who’s going to win in Bahrain because I just don’t have an idea. You see Ferrari is going fast but everyone is very, very close. So I think it’s going to be nice because nobody can say “yes, I have a competitive car.”
Rubens Barrichello

Along with Michael Schumacher, Barrichello is one of only two drivers to have raced in F1 before refuelling was made legal in 1994. But he doesn’t expect that will give him an advantage this year:

I don’t think so. I think that cars were very different [in 1993].

Even though we consider this year that we hve to look after the tyres, in Formula 1 nowadays conserving the tyres is out of the question, you want to go flat out. Testing has been quite intense to try to go flat out all the way though. In ‘93 we were looking after tyres, it was different. I think although it’s only February it’s intense – we’ve been doing 500km, 600km, 700km per day which is not normal.

So I would say it’s different times, the young kids have learned very fast what they need, they’ve been doing starts on high fuel, so I won’t have an advantage at the first race.
Rubens Barrichello

He also praised the work done by Cosworth on the new CA2010 engine Williams will use this year:

The Cosworth is working very well. You can see we have put lots of miles on engines this winter and we congratulate them for what they have done so far because we’ve done a lot of exercises with the engine, they cured one of the problems we had at the very first test in Valencia so we were happy in Jerez with the power.

Obviously it’s a new engine so drive-ability and some small issues need to be recovered and that’s what we’re testing. But I’m quite confident that we as Williams-Cosworth are bonding and I think we can have a good championship.

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Trulli: Lotus “four seconds off the pace”

February 28th, 2010 at 07:56am Under Racing

Jarno Trulli believes the pace shown by Lotus in his last day of testing will be much the same at the first race of 2010 at Bahrain in two weeks’ time.

Trulli said he expects the T127’s performance to be:

What we’ve seen here, no more. We’ll probably be four seconds off.
Jarno Trulli

However he praised the work the team had done in preparing the car for its Grand Prix debut in such a short space of time:

We need more time because we only got the engine on September 12th, no earlier. But in five months we were able to design a car and put it on the track which is quite amazing. But to do that they had to make some compromises on performance and many other things. We are lacking in every area but at least the car is running and reliable.

We’re not losing wings, we’re not having major problems, we’re doing all we are capable of doing in such a short time.

He ran a race simulation during the wettest part of today’s test:

It was OK. Unfortunately it was in wet conditions, I was hoping it would be dry. Nevertheless we got a lot of mileage done and reliability was not too bad. It seems the car is, so far, reliable.

In the afternoon we had a little hydraulic leak which needed to be repaired.

We are lacking in every area – we knew that before we hit the track. We don’t have the time to get the parts done before the first race so we have to deal with it. We’ll start our season in the mid-season, I would say.
Jarno Trulli

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Button says more to come from MP4-25

February 28th, 2010 at 07:56am Under Racing

Jenson Button believes the updated McLaren MP4-25 he tested today will be quicker once the team have improved its set-up.

Speaking to reporters at the Circuit de Cataluna today he said:

There’s definitely more to come with this car. We went from having high fuel in the car to going out and doing lower-fuel runs and it’s very difficult because you haven’t done any set-up work. The day was too short for me today, really.

Given another day of testing I know what I’d do to the car to improve it. Hopefully Lewis will be testing a few things that are useful tomorrow. Because to be out of the box with a package that’s this consistent and with the pace that we’ve got, I’m very happy.

I don’t think we are at our maximum yet but we will do our best tomorrow to get the maximum out of the car. The set-up changes the team are thinking about for tomorrow could help us quite a lot and improve the balance. It’s a good update but we’re not getting the best out of it yet because we haven’t done enough laps.
Jenson Button

A rain shower during testing in Barcelona today meant the team weren’t able to perfect the set-up of the revised car before embarking on a race distance run this afternoon. He said:

This morning was frustrating because it was wet but it wasn’t wet enough to get any useful running in. It was greasy – the worst possible conditions you could have.

So it wasn’t perfect, especially when you’ve had an update on the car. This afternoon we did one run which seemed OK and then we thought ‘we’ve got to get into doing some mileage and reliability checks’. Do a race distance and give the boys a chance to do some pit stops.

Our race run was great, we didn’t get any red flags until the last couple of laps of the last stint. The boys did a great job not only with reliability but also with pit stops. It was quite fun because there was a lot of other cars out on the circuit doing the same sort of thing, especially the Ferrari. And there was a little bit of rain for five or six laps.

It was a lot of fun and it was interesting to see what happens through a race, from 150, 160-odd kilos down to zero fuel. It’s about managing the tyres and managing the fuel load. There’s a lot more that you have to think about than last season.

In 2009 you had to think about looking after the tyres, but it was over a 22-lap period and you obviously had a lot less fuel in the car. Now the car is very heavy and it’s going to be very tricky. But we got a lot of useful information today.
Jenson Button

He also gave his thoughts on how the competition is shaping up and tipped Sauber to shine in the opening races:

If you look at the times today on the long runs the Ferrari is competitive – but we all knew that. Others I don’t really know about. But the Sauber’s going to surprise a few people, I think it’s quicker than most people realise. They’ll be up there at the first race.

There’s five or six teams that could be competitive but it’s all a bit of a guessing game at the moment and it will be until we qualify on Saturday at Bahrain. And I think that’s great for the sport and it’s exciting for the fans of F1.
Jenson Button

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F1 testing pictures: 27th February

February 28th, 2010 at 07:56am Under Racing

Felipe Massa during today’s test

The penultimate day of testing at Barcelona saw the last appearances of some drivers including Jenson Button and Nico Rosberg before the first race of the season.

Here’s a collection of pictures from today’s test:

Image (C) Julien Leroy / F1 Fanatic

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Top 10 annoying comments by non-F1 fans

February 28th, 2010 at 07:55am Under Racing

If you are reading this there is a pretty high chance you follow F1 (if your not you might be reading this because an F1 fan has told you too because your comments will be in this list). Being an F1 fan is not the easiest sport to follow. When someone asks you why [...]

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