Can we read anything into the first days' times? That Benson spent most of the day in the garage then comes out and puts a lap almost 1 second quicker than anyone else did for the entire day.

A glory run, or an ominous warning for the rest of the grid??

Only if Button is as good at analysing the data and they make the job swap permanent.

I see Marussia had another eventful testing session.

I see Hamilton has binned the Merc' on his first day of testing.

Suggests he was trying quite hard at the time, which makes you wonder if they're being a bit "optimistic" about the amount of potential the car has.

*EDIT*
Merc' now reporting a loss of rear brakes was responsible for Hamilton's crash.

So, Rosberg's wiring loom caught fire yesterday and Hamilton's brakes failed today?
Hmmm....

Next week I am going to be interviewing a former two time Formula 1 world champion. That's alright innit

Hakkinen or Fittipaldi?

Not a good start for Mercedes... 26 laps in 2 days.

mika.

Great stuff.

From what I've heard, he's not the most "technical" of drivers but he's supposed to be a good laugh.


Seems like Massa might have had a bit of a rush of blood to the head today.
Everybody else has been lapping Jerez in 1:19s and Massa decided to do a 1:17.
Maybe showing off more of the car's true pace than the team would like at this stage of the year?

Can't read too much into it, I guess, but apparently Perez is roughly 2s slower than Button in the McLaren.
Hopefully that's just due to different programmes rather than a lack of pace.

Also, the Merc' seems to have managed to keep running all morning.
It's amazing that so many people were criticising Hamilton for his off yesterday, even though Merc' announced that the car's brakes had failed.

Teams say that regardless of whether it is pilot error or not.

Maybe.

Still, I suspect that the honking great flat-spots on the front tyres and the unmarked rears verify the official story.

You'd think people who claim to have an interest in this stuff would pay attention to the details.
Still, I guess some people just take every opportunity to take a swipe at a driver they dislike.

I doubt he would have done that time unless his team allowed it. More like he was running on very low fuel, and posted a qualifying lap time. Probably just firing a shot across the bows of Mclaren and RB.


If they are on the same program, then it is worrying for Perez. However chances are they are on different programs. I cant see Perez being 2secs a lap slower.


I read it was a brakes failure as well. No reason to doubt their word for it. He was lucky the front brakes worked, and managed to slow him down from 260kph to around 60kph. Otherwise it could have been a very serious accident. Glad he was able to walk away from it.

Yep, he's lucky the break failure happened where it did - on a faster corner it could have been serious.

The 'chips on shoulder' brigade will no doubt continue to claim conspiracy and that it was all Lewis' fault. But I think most of us are used to this by now..

I guess all the mind-games in F1 can cause paranoia.

I suppose the real story there might be that if most of the other teams are still finding their feet, testing reliability and comparing sim' work to track results while Massa is actually just properly driving the car flat-out, or somewhere near it, then I guess it's likely that the Ferrari might be a fundamentally strong car this year.

Ferrari obviously realise that a better start to the season would have won them the championship last year so maybe they thought the priority was just to get out there and test flat-out, even though that means revealing the true pace of the car, rather than testing the car at 70% and hoping everything would go according to plan when they dial everything right up?

I guess if all the other teams calculate that their cars will do a 1:16 they're probably feeling quite smug whereas if they figure that the best they could really expect is also a 1:17 then they probably expect Ferrari to be on the pace right from the start of the season.

Incidentally, I see McLaren have gone for a Ferrari-style pullrod front suspension this year too.
Dunno if RBR have as well.

I see Hamilton's being reported as commenting that this year's Merc' doesn't have as much downforce as last year's Mclaren.

Not a good sign, if true.

Last year's McLaren had a tonne of DF at the end of the season. In some ways it had more than the RBR or Ferrari, but the lack of reliability really covered up just how good the car was. It was probably the best car on the grid for a lot of the time, and that's a hard act to follow, especially for a team that couldn't find its arse with both hands last year.

I don't think this years cars are going to be much further on in terms of aero at the start of the season. But the basic package at Merc seems pretty solid, and they can build on that.

Hmmm...the Merc doesn't look great if I'm being honest. Apparently, it seems like they're still losing their tyres on the longer runs and the car just looks too basic and clunky. If they want to be really challenging the front runners, they need to tidy up a few things on the car and tighten the rear more, but there doesn't look to be anything innovative on the Merc. Having Aldo Costa in charge of aero doesn't seem promising - Costa has produced a few stinkers in his time at Ferrari.

I hope they can develop this car throughout the year as it has potential, but there is a lot of work to do. Given their previous track record of poor development, it doesn't bode terribly well for Merc.

At a guess (and a very cautious guess), I'd say they're the 6th quickest team, behind the top 4 and Sauber.

As Lewis said, "better to it have happened there, than in a race."

Can't really disagree with that.

It's just that if you factor in the usual level of F1 slipperiness, if he's prepared to publically admit that it's "not as good", chances are that the reality is probably quite a bit worse than that.


It's worth the effort (if you haven't already) to look through Gary Anderson's comments from the tests last week. He's made some very astute observations.

He seems to think that the RBR is cornering faster than anything else out there (he says 10% more DF, although I'm not sure how he can calculate it that accurately) although it's less forgiving of mistakes.

He reckons the Ferrari and the McLaren are slightly less focused than the RBR but, as a result, they're actually more forgiving.
Seems like the latter might have the advantage when it comes to going into a corner off-line while overtaking etc.

Kinda makes you think; are RBR so confident that they'll be out in front that they might build a car that might struggle to overtake and/or are Ferrari & McLaren so sure that they'll be chasing that they build a car designed for overtaking rather than designed for outright pace?

Also, listening to some of Button's comments, he seems to suggest that McLaren have changed their design philosophy somewhat for this years car.
Given that Button is usually a pretty smooth driver who's easy on the tyres, if McLaren have built a car to suit Button it will, hopefully, mean that it'll be easy enough on the tyres that they'll have some flexibility in race strategy.

Finally, anybody else predicting another 2011-style season full of frustration, desperate overtaking manoevres and crashes for Hamilton as he tries to drive the Merc' like it was his old car?

It seems Rory Byrne has been helping with the design of this years car. From a Ferrari point of view, that can only be a good thing.

In other news it seems that Karthikayan might get the last driver spot available at Force India. Its a big shame for the FI team, as a couple of years ago they had a very good car. It seems they have been standing still since then. Getting a paid driver, is a step backwards for them. Especially if the paid driver is Karthikayan. He really doesnt deserve a place in F1, certainly in a low mid-table team like FI. Shame as he is holding back some drivers that really have some talent.

He isn't personally holding them back.

He is an option, like any other non-paid driver and the team are the decision makers as to who *they* hold back.

Not saying that I agree, but I don't think it's fair that the driver is made responsible.

Yep you are right, its not the driver holding anyone back. Mistake on my part.

If this is true, then it's all a bit of a mess for this season. Countries pulling out of this years races..Carry On F1

That article is rubbish to be honest (IMO). Its very biased and the author for some reason doesnt like Bernie much.

If Bernie backed down on the fee he charges, then every circuit would pull the same stunt. So he has to put his foot down. As it turned out, it worked. The Nurburgring were able to come up with the money. Which highlights Bernies stance of not backing down as the correct stance to take.

Another point that is worth keeping in mind, is that Bernie has more countries that want a race than there are slots available. Thus the demand is greater than supply. Russia and America (NY circuit) are two that come to mind that will want a race in the future.

I don't think this is anything new on previous years... we just have more coverage of it now.

Looking forward to this season, Ferrari look to have the edge for me, after them it'll be Red Bull as most competitive, McLaren will have a good car but it'll depend how well Perez drives it I guess. Maybe a year early for Mercedes and Lewis.