Wont matter too much - we will still be pitting for tyres

I have been looking out for the state of tyres on most cars. I would have missed out on this picture if not for Karlth. The pundits/experts believe 1 stop strategies will be the way to go this season. Those cars up the front who are light on their tyres will have an advantage.

here

LH did 20 laps this morning. It would be nice to see his lap times.
It seems Mclaren is still being largely undereported just like yesterday. If he was heavy fuel load as suspected, the car is not bad at all. It was right there at the top.

but if you loosing 2+ seconds 20 laps into the race you are going to get overtaken, similar to what we saw in the late stages at Oz last year.

I take this has encouragement, if they where way off the pace and chewing theirs tyres up then it would be all over some foreign media outlets.

http://twitpic.com/12qk11

More flow testing in the sidepods??????

blah 09 all over again............... i really hope not I know i know u cant take anything from these tests but still it is very worrying for macca fans! Im setting my sights low this year to avoid getting upset again

None that I could see and even if there were, I still wouldn't worried.

Those square things in the side pods inlets?

EDIT.

Australia was an exception

you're not going to win races qualifying in 7th position, even if you do have more tyre left

Yeah, I think the team have made a conscious decision to instrument the car pretty much all the time at this stage of testing. For now I'm assuming it doesn't mean a problem.

Maybe not, but you can certainly lose quite a few places if you dont have any tire left.

The point of using the Australia example was obviously just to point out that being largely off-the-pace with worn tires is gonna hurt you a good deal.

EDIT: And just cuz I feel it necessary in this thread: I'm not agreeing that the Mclaren has bad tire wear. Its just a pic, and any car could have them look like that. Just pointing this out in general, cuz the Australia example was not irrelevant.

On his lap in the wet (a few minutes ago), Lewis was only 2 sec. slower, than his best time today

Maybe, maybe not I don't know.
I actually think the team are going about data collection differently. Last year's experience taught them a lot and have learned a lot about how to most effeciently do these. I also think what they are doing is more towards the development of the car rather than attempts to solve some difficult problem or issues.

No doubt that the car is fast but how really fast has not been divulged to the public and opponents only they know. Furthermore, there are no rumours in the pitlane that they are having issues. Last year, the pitlane was pregnant with such rumours.

If you are going to make several back-to-back tests that involves series of setup changes, it is obvious you are not going to spend too much time on the track circulating.
I personally don't buy "stalling" at high speed theories just by looking at there lap times - the car is fast.

of course, but if you're going to take advantage of having more tyre, you gotta be up there

wow another day, another new sensor device...they are really living up to this sensors are us moniker.

Lets hope it will all make our CFD and development capabilities much better

you would think a team like Virgin with their CFD only approach will benefit alot if they could gather such data

No, less than 1.3 secs but he only did a run of 2 laps.

Well unless 'hard-on-tires car' is a mile faster than everyone else, chances are there will be somebody to take advantage of it.

I'm going to make a call here and feel free to quote this later if it turns out I'm wrong.

But mclaren have built another turd.

I reckon it will will a race maybe even two (mostly on account of Hamilton than anything). But the car is not born well I reckon, and you can polish a turd, it's still a turd. As the mp24 showed.

I could be wrong but every winter you can tell who is quick and who isn't. You may not know the exact margins but you do know the ballpark. And right now I reckon the mclaren is somewhere in the bleachers...

Agreed, this fell in line with my thinking. There will be less tyre allocations for the team / race weekend this year so if a team can find a way to gather data for setups without doing too many runs on a Friday and Saturday, they will have more fresh tyres at there disposal and also save money and the best way to caliberate these tools accurately is use and test them now; during pre-season testing.

It has also been published in several sources that Mclaren do have highly sophisticated tyre simulation tools at their disposal. If these summations are right, then this is the way to go...

wishful thinking...

Fair enough, but what reasons drove you to this conclusion?

in reality it won't be that big of a difference on how each car uses its tyres, we certainly won't see people who qualify high lose 2 seconds a lap to the people behind, and if we do it'll certainly be a rare event. it won't be that eventful

Remember last year winter testing?
What happend to ferrari afterwards...?

You usually can tell who's built and good car and who hasn't, yes. Usually though, after more than four full days of testing.

There's bugger all data to go on at the moment.

It´s not a bad car but on the other hand I also think that it´s not a super car.
At least not as fast as one might have thought by its look.
The good thing is that so far it seems there is no other dominant car out there, so the driver will be a bigger factor

Too early to say. Nobody could have predicted the championship order one and a half tests into last year's winter testing season, either.

A mixture of things, the reserved performance of the car so far, despite an apparently mature aero package. The lack of running, and the way button has seemed to struggle in the car. Even lewis hasn't set jaws dropping either.

The over analysis raises red flags too. It's an out there concept for the car. Mclaren have a habit of trying a bit too hard and over egging things. The mp23 was so good because it was a simple design executed well. The 4 and 5 seem a bit too clever for their own good.

In high school english there's always *that* girl who uses 50 big words to replace 5 small ones to make herself sound smart. Mclarens last two cars seem similar...

I cod be wrong though. But I doubt it.

It may not be something that plagues a car race-to-race, but when people are talking about one-stopping being the norm, then who does and doesn't use their tires well is going to become more important, and also more apparent. There could well be plenty of times when a car is just knackered at the end of a race because it pitted too early for tires earlier on. As for it being 'eventful', it usually is. Especially when its a front-runner. Much of the excitement in F1 racing happens when one driver/car starts to struggle for whatever reason and starts getting caught up by a competitor. Imola 05? 06?

I don't know what you mean by "reserved performance" of the car. The car is faster than the Ferrari when long runs comparison were made. This analysis has been done elswhere. Other F1 drivers and team managers do not agree with you.

What over analysis and by who? anyway, you contradicted yourself by describing the aero package as mature.
The 4 was underdeveloped, don't you remember?

It seems your post or opinion was based more on hope than substance.

It is a real pity the weather condition is so poor. I think very few teams have all the info needed to fully understand the BS tyres at the moment. The current number of pit stops estimation are more pure guess work than not at the moment IMHO.

true

5000'th post

No, they dont look faster. In Valencia, they looked quite close(you cant pick who's faster in testing when its simply 'close', too many other unknown variables), and here, its impossible to say cuz there's nothing even close to proper 'comparison' to make.

I agree with your overall sentiment that the Mclaren isn't doomed(far from it), but I think you're guilty of the same line of 'wishful thinking' that kar seems to be latching on to here.

Everything's still up in the air at the time being. All the teams have said they'll start searching for performance starting with the next tests, so its then we'll start to get a 'bit' better of an idea of how things are stacking up.

The 24 was a "different" concept - but it was woefully underdeveloped in comparison to the Brawn, Redbull, or even the Toyota. TBH there was nothing very "clever" about it at all.....

It's an interesting analysis by one of the more erudite posters here, but I still think it's far to early to make that judgement.

MP4-24 wasn't 'too clever for it's own good' imho, rather it was too conservative and 'simple' compared to many other teams more developed interpretations of the new rules.

25 is much more aggressive and for it to be a 'turd' it would be symptomatic of another instance of McLaren taking their eye off the ball, which after last year I just don't think will happen.

The team appears to be pursuing a radically different testing programme this year with, I believe, the aim of correlating their CFD and simulation tools to a much higher level of accuracy than has been seen before which will allow it more scope to develope the car throughout the year with no testing. The difference between last year, when they were throwing vis flow over everything and bolting on '08 aero packages to see what they did in comparison smacked correctly of a degree of panic and ripping up the test schedule in favour of making it up as they went along. This year we've seen a very structured programme with the accent very much on correlation of data; the multi-point pitot apparatus wasn't knocked up in the back of the truck overnight. They know exactly what they want to measure and how they want to do it and they're doing it very methodically - why run 100 laps when the programme calls for 70. I'm sure the team already knows the car is reliable.

Yes, Ferrari is fast and consistent but like all other teams they are pursuing a more 'traditional' test programme. Whether Mclaren's approach turns out to be better or worse is far too early to tell, but likewise because they're not running a 'like for like' testing programme, let alone the variables of fuel etc, it's simply impossible to make any conclusion either way. I fear we're all going to have to wait another month to really find out.

there aren't many examples, the teams know what they have to do as well as the drivers so the difference won't be a huge amount, pace will most likely be dictated by both the raw speed of the car and how long the tyres last

i do hope for exciting racing but I really doubt we'll see much

Its definitely going to become a viable strategy for front runners again. The past few years, the biggest problem is that a one-stop strategy will RUIN your qualifying potential, as you had to run with that one-stop fuel load in Q3, meaning you were NOT going to start near the front. This year, you can start from pole position and do a one-stop if you think your car can handle it.

Whether it becomes the 'norm', yes, its guess-work, but if Alonso setting his best times at the *end* of a 50 lap stint are any indication......

I said it some time ago, and ill stick to it. This car will be at the front. No doubt. Its a winner. Nothing is like last year.
They learnt from their mistakes. Yes they use birdcages and flowvis. However as opposed to last year were they kept using the devices the same places, this year it looks like they are, confirming all the flowstructures in a very well organised and structured way. Something that will be of huge help, since testing is not allowed. Lets look at it, they have meassure devices that fit perfectly every were on the car. Does that indicate last min. solutions. NO. My gut feeling is, mclaren is doing everything they can to keep expectations down, because they know they have a rocket.
And before you label me as an ignorant always positive mclaren fan, im not. Ive critized the team many times in the past.
But offcourse feel free to lynch me, if it turns out im wrong. :-)

Ferrari was fastest in long runs last winter until Brawn came along. Redbull were nowhere. First few races in 09, Ferrari were nowhere and Redbull were sniffing poduims and wins.

Fair enough with regards to your first paragraph. I can't prove you wrong since I don't know if Ferrari were doing those short stints on heavy fuel even if that was the opinion everywhere that the news of that test was carried and wouldn't want to get into an unending circle of back and forth. I will leave it there and soon enough we will find out when there are no more places to hide.

Ver very well put

Alonso setting his best times at the end of 50 laps means absolutely nothing unless he didn't do a pit stop.
It will even be expected to be fast at the end of long run simply because of very light fuel load. Also bear in mind that this is testing and he wasn't been pushed and could therefore freely manage the tyres as he pleased.

I wouldn't read too much into that even if it were the Mclaren.

pretty much,

the car has shown that at the very least its an improvement on the 24, everything suggests that

what we are yet to find out is where the car stands in terms of speed to the other WDC pretenders.

what is obvious so far is that they are keeping their cards fairly close to their chest and the range of possibilities of the car still go from awesome to ehh... but that ehh will be better than the 24 im sure.


The only thing i can infer so far from the way they've gone testing... is its likely they feel they've built a complex car/chassis design with lots of potential, and they are being aggressive trying to unlock this and understand the car....instead of worrying about reliability, outright speed or the normal stuff....Button alludes to this...

coming to the early tests with all these ridiculous sensors suggest intention rather than reaction


in anycase, really too early to tell where exactly... but Silver Donkey it is not

It is definitely early, but I am making the call now. And I expect (and will deserve) all that I get if come Bahrain, I am proved very wrong.

It's just like last year, the Ferrari didn't look bad in testing, but then it didn't look great either. You just knew (whether you wanted to admit it or not) it wasn't quite there as a car. I strongly believe in modern F1 that, yes, you *can* tell a good car from a bad one in tests. The drivers say the same thing, 'as soon as I got in the car I knew...'.

A car is born well or not born well. You can correct some of its vices, but it's either a good car or not.

Time will tell anyway.

I couldn't have put that better myself. There is obviously a clear structure to their planning with the aero devices etc on the car collecting and correlating data.

At this stage I wouldn't be worried for McLaren, they're testing the car in an effort to understand it fully.

As for times we won't get an indication of how the teams are doing compared to last year until we reach Barcelona, and we can use the Q3 qualli weights as a tool to compare like for like lap times.