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2015 Countdown

4K views 19 replies 3 participants last post by  Ingenieur 
#1 ·
PRACTICE 1
024 Days 01 H 16 M 02 S
 
#6 ·
There is cumulative data somewhere about not only times, but total laps, type of tires used etc.
For example: Rosberg in the Mercedes set the second fastest time on medium tires, said to be up to a second slower than the soft / super softs the other drivers used.

Formula 1 test at Circuit de Catalunya 22 February 2015
Pos. Driver Team Time Laps
1. R. Grosjean Lotus F1 Team 01:24.067 111
2. N. Rosberg Mercedes Grand Prix 01:24.321 131
3. D. Kvyat Red Bull 01:24.941 104
4. F. Nasr Sauber 01:24.956 73
5. V. Bottas Williams 01:25.345 129
6. C. Sainz Jr. Scuderia Toro Rosso 01:25.604 88
7. S. Vettel Ferrari 01:26.312 76
8. N. Hulkenberg Force India F1 01:26.591 36
9. F. Alonso McLaren 01:27.596 20

Interesting: Famed engine guru Mario Illien (Ilmor engines) has been hired by Renault (on Red Bull's recommendation) in an effort to short track their 2015 engine development.
Illien is the co-founder of Ilmor Engineering, the company that evolved into Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines.
 
#7 · (Edited)
#8 ·
F1 in 2015: A rundown of how each team fared in the first Barcelona test

Pics & article F1 in 2015: A rundown of how each team fared in the first Barcelona test | Features & Experts | Sky Sports Formula 1

Who's looking good for the new F1 season - and who's not...
By Pete Gill. Last Updated: 23/02/15 7:08pm


Mercedes: Even when prioritising lap count over lap times, Mercedes still look too fast for the rest of the field. The world champions ran almost exclusively on the medium compound all week but Nico Rosberg's lap of 1:24.321 on the final day was, tyre-corrected, still by far the fastest of the week. And there's still more to come. "I've not really started dialling the car into how I'd like to perfect it," said Lewis Hamilton. "But it feels good, similar to last year but better." Ominous words - and deeds.


Red Bull: The completion of two full race simulations means that Red Bull are already in far better shape than they were twelve months ago. The RB11 will be heavily revised for next week's third and final test of the winter but doubts are growing about the likely competitiveness of the Renault engine. It could be a slow start to 2015 for the former world champions.


Williams: The Grove outfit have remained under the radar this winter, quietly but efficiently going about their business, and devoting the whole of Day Three to pit-stop practice - itself an indication of their confidence. Although the FW37 is yet to appear prominently on the timesheets, insiders believe it represents a clear improvement on the FW36 car which carried the team to third in the 2014 Constructors' Championship.


Ferrari: The surprise package of the winter so far, although the team itself is remaining cautious. New boss Maurizio Arrivabene continues to insist that two race victories would be satisfactory in 2015 while Vettel has cautioned against any conclusions being drawn from the F15-T's performance so far. But an improvement has definitely been achieved over the winter. "It's a very nice car," said Kimi Raikkonen after his week's work, "which is completely different to last year's".


McLaren: An acute shortage of laps means that the team are unlikely to be ready for the season-opener in Australia, with their running in Barcelona repeatedly hampered by a faulty seal in their MGU-K - a hefty price to pay for a componenent worth just a few pounds. But despite the paucity of running, the team's confidence remains undimmed - both Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso, speaking prior to his mysterious accident on Day Four, are adamant the team will be winners.


Toro Rosso: The long-distance runners of the Barcelona test with the STR10 completing more laps than any other 2015 car. Although Carlos Sainz blotted his copybook by crashing out on Day Two, Max Verstappen continues to impress. The youngster, who completed over 120 laps on Saturday, is yet to put a wheel off line.


Lotus: Could a switch to Mercedes power do for Lotus in 2015 what it did for Williams in 2014? After a wretched season with the under-powered E22, Lotus have their swagger back with the E23. "There is a clear improvement," said Pastor Maldonado after topping the timesheets on both of his days of running. Starting the new season as the third or fourth-fastest team is already a realistic prospect.


Sauber: After an encouraging test in Jerez, Barcelona constituted a big step back for Sauber as they struggled to put any meaningful mileage on the C34. Felipe Nasr's afternoon-wrecking collision with Susie Wolff on Day One was followed by a series of niggles on Friday and then a crippling gearbox malfunction which restricted the team to less than 100 laps across the weekend.


Force India: Although Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenberg, as well as Mercedes loanee Pascal Wehrlein, were on duty at Barcelona, the absence of Force India's 2015 car rendered the Silverstone outfit peripheral figures. The VJM08 will make its belated debut next week at Barcelona but, already eight days behind most of the field, Force India have a lot of catching up to do.

The third and final winter test starts on Thursday and the Sky Sports F1 Digital team will be providing live commentary from all four days at Barcelona. Sky Sports News HQ will also have live updates from trackside.
 
#10 ·
Analysis: What we learned from the first Barcelona test

Analysis: What we learned from the first Barcelona test | Richland F1

Good analysis and all stats.
Here are 2
Total distance by team:

Show entriesSearch:
Position Team Laps
1. Mercedes 446
2. Red Bull 418
3. Toro Rosso 411
4. Williams 407
5. Lotus 361
6. Ferrari 345
7. Sauber 318
8. Force India 304
9. McLaren 124Showing 1 to 9 of 9 entriesPreviousNext
Total distance by power unit:

Show entriesSearch:
Position Manufacturer Laps
1. Mercedes 1,518
2. Renault 829
3. Ferrari 663
4. Honda 124
 
#11 ·
F1 Live Timing: Day 7 – 2015 Barcelona testing Posted On 28 Feb 2015

Nico Rosberg sets fastest lap of Barcelona tests and then says W06 was misbehaving! | Nico Rosberg Profile | Formula 1 | Sky Sports

Nico Rosberg sets fastest lap of Barcelona tests and then says W06 was misbehaving!
German finishes day over a second clear of the chasing pack, but says Silver Arrows were chasing a balanced set up all day
By William Esler in Barcelona. Last Updated: 27/02/15 5:59


Nico Rosberg has added insult to the injured pride of the rest of the field by revealing he wasn't happy with the set up of his Mercedes when it set the fastest lap of the Barcelona tests so far.

Rosberg’s stunning lap of 1:22.792 was both nearly three seconds faster than pole position at the Circuit de Catalunya last May and more than half a second clear of this winter’s previous benchmark set by Williams on the first day of the final test.

Red Bull boss Christian Horner described the lap – which was almost immediately followed by another 1:22.8 from the Mercedes – as “pretty ominous”, but there was further cause for anxiety in the paddock after the session when Rosberg suggested that the world champions were still yet to find the sweet spot of their new car.

“Today was a difficult day because even though all the numbers looked like they were in the right place in the set up, the set up was actually very, very far away from where it needed to be and we don’t really understand that,” Rosberg told Sky Sports News HQ.

“So the whole day we were chasing the set up and trying to find the direction and it was really difficult to find where to go, we had a lot of oversteer in the car so the rear was all over the place and poor traction.

“Eventually in the end it was feeling more and more decent and putting the soft tyre on that gives the grip anyway, so with the soft tyre it doesn’t really matter what the balance is because it will be more or less possible to do a good lap. I am pleased with my laps because they are both identical - so a good ending.”


From trackside the W06 appeared to be in a formula of its own, looking planted and effortless to drive as Rosberg swept through the high-speed turns at the Circuit de Catalunya, but the German rejected any notion the car was easy to drive.

“That is not what it feels like, it feels very much the opposite,” the Mercedes driver added.

“Today the car was really not good on the rear, it was the opposite of planted – that is my subjective opinion of course, it might look good from the outside compared to everyone else – but I always want better and better. So it is still a work in progress.”

Rosberg was also worried by how long it took Mercedes to rectify their set up issues, given he wouldn’t have eight hours of track time to experiment on a race weekend.

“The whole day we were going in the right direction, but it took a long, long time because we were extremely far away and that and that is extremely unusual and so it caught us off guard a little bit,” the German said.

“We are confident that we have a good car because we have a great team at the moment, but at the same time we are also well aware that the others have been posting some quick times and keep working.”


The fastest laps after six days of testing in Barcelona
 

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#16 ·
Where the teams stand after the final pre-season test in Barcelona

Order, order: Where the teams stand after the final pre-season test in Barcelona | Sky Sports

Assessing the likely pecking order on the grid at the start of the 2015 F1 season after the final test in Barcelona, front to back...
By Pete Gill at Barcelona. Last Updated: 01/03/15 10:13pm

Both in the fastest lap charts and the total laps count, the Mercedes W06 was a class apart throughout winter testing. Only the size of their advantage over the rest of the field at the start of the 2015 campaign remains in doubt, although there is a widespread expectation that the Silver Arrows will be even further ahead when the new season commences than they were at the end of 2014. The best have just got better.


Whichever way you looked at it, Mercedes impressed. Despite the world champions prioritising reliability over pace throughout the 12 days of running, the W06 was over a second clear of the field in Barcelona on soft tyres. “They are unbelievably quick,” acknowledged Jenson Button. Even more ominously, Nico Rosberg’s lap of 1:22.792 remained the benchmark figure for both Barcelona tests even after Williams and Ferrari, their perceived nearest challengers, bolted on the supersofts.

Hamilton v Rosberg, The Rematch is all set for top billing in 2015. And everyone else will just have to be an observer.


Even if second best may be a second behind, Williams appear to have made tangible process over the winter. Their new car has been enthusastically endorsed by the team’s drivers and, although it is unlikely to match the W06, the new Williams seems to have a slight edge over the Ferrari and Red Bull. In the anticipated three-way fight to be the best of the rest, the difference between the FW37, the SF15-T and RB11 – some day, an F1 team will surely simply name its new car something like 'Ralf' just for ease of access – may be as little as a couple of tenths. "From a performance point of view, it’s clear that Mercedes is still ahead by quite a way, but right behind there is us, Williams and Red Bull, all very close," summarised Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel.

Whether Williams can maintain their lofty position against the inevitable development onslaught from the two superpowers through the season remains to be seen, however.


The post-Jerez test optimism triggered by Ferrari's unexpectedly fast start to 2015 was steadily tempered through the two Barcelona events as the Scuderia struggled to coax their new car into embarking on heavy-duty runs or produce any outstanding lap times. Race simulations eventually arrived on the last weekend, but even when armed with supersofts, the Ferrari remained half a second shy of the soft-shod Mercedes and fractionally adrift of the Williams.

Until the real deal of Melbourne, it’s a guessing game, but as new boss Maurizio Arrivabene concluded on the final day in Barcelona, “the only thing that is quite certain is that Mercedes is there” whilst pointing wistfully into the distance. They're coming back, but they're not there yet.


To damn Red Bull’s winter with faint praise, at least it was better than last year’s wretched regression. But even the RB11’s disguised livery couldn’t disguise the sense of disappointment which surrounded the former behemoths throughout the winter – and their helplessness. The car's breakdown at the end of the pitlane on the final morning rather encaspulated the team's month in Spain.

And, for now at least, there's not much they can do about it. To critical effect, the Renault engine is believed to be significantly down on power compared to the Mercedes and Ferrari units, rendering the aerodynamic secrets which Red Bull have attempted to camouflage through the winter relatively meaningless. Only when Renault introduce their full engine upgrade ‘tokens’ later in the year may the fallen superpowers be sufficiently equipped to give Mercedes something to think about again.


After a horrible 2014, Lotus appear to be on the road to recovery. Although it's not a coincidence that their return to respectability this winter followed a switch from Renault to Mercedes power, the design improvements made to the E23 shouldn’t be underestimated either. Both Romain Grosjean and Pastor Maldonado have raved about the driveability of their new car after 12 longs months at the wheel of the unpredictable and unstable E22. Points and an appearance in Q3 at Melbourne are realistic targets. But only the team’s accountants are well placed to give comment on their 2015 prospects thereafter.


The glaring contrast between McLaren’s optimism about the MP4-30 and the car’s on-track performances was a running theme through winter testing. No matter how bad things seemed to be – and before Jenson Button put 100 laps under the car’s belt on his penultimate day of running, it was verging on very bad indeed – the team’s self-confidence remained absolute steadfast with both Button and Fernando Alonso, albeit prior to his puzzling crash, adamant the new partnership with Honda will prove victorious. But if testing taught us one thing, it’s that it will take time. The car might look the real deal but viewings were few and far between in both Jerez and Barcelona and the chances of the MP4-30 finishing the Australian GP are as slim as the car’s ‘size zero’ bodywork. The early stages will be tough going, but the team believe they will only become competitive when the European leg of the season begins in May. If they are, then it only takes another small leap of faith to believe they might give the best of the rest – if not Mercedes themselves – a fright before the end of the year.


The Sauber might have reliable performance but does it have pace? Other than when it was waylaid by a persistent gearbox niggle during the middle test, the Sauber’s stamina persistently impressed –- only Mercedes bettered their tally of 5708 km. The C34's speed, though, was an altogether different matter. So while backing the Sauber to reach the chequered flag in Australia is a decent bet, just don’t expect it to get there in a hurry.


Appearances can be deceptive – and none more so than with the 2015 Toro Rosso. The beautiful aesthetics of a car which team boss Franz Tost hailed at birth as the best the team have ever made hasn't dovetailed with its ugly on-track behaviour. Lethargic in the slow corners and erratic in the fast, the Toro Rosso has struck trackside observers throughout winter testing as the least impressive of all the 2015 chargers on display. A massive overhaul, almost amounting to an entirely new car, was introduced for the final test, but that only means the team will travel to Melbourne with a largely unproven package – a tall order for their all-rookie driver line-up of Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz to take on. Theirs could be an uneven battle, for while Sainz has seemingly struggled, the precociously-talented Verstappen, set to become the youngest driver in F1 history, looks a potential star in the making.


Don’t be fooled by the instant reliability of the VJM08 following the very late debut of the new Force India car halfway through the third and final winter test. Although the team are hopeful that their new upgraded wind tunnel will produce dividends in the second half of the season, the price to be paid for ‘cash-flow issues’ over the winter, which was chiefly responsible for the new car’s belated introduction, will be a rough journey at the start of 2015. But at least they will be along for the ride.
 

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