Alonso = cry baby

you mean quickest lap? sorry to dissapoint you, but read qhe q&a and ferrari didn;t try any pure qualy lap but simulated a whole weekend sim, still more to come tomorrow with felipe

Wouldn't it be nice if Andy pops in and write, "calm down guys nothing to worry about"

If that were true, he wouldn't be slower than a Williams (which I think is the only team who really *went for it*)

Do they need to mention thet will be bringing new parts tomorrow just for our sake? I think they have something else to do rather than satisfying a bunch of people on a BB.

Whats your opinion on the performance Rod?

They already did, this year.

Alonso did go for it. He probably could have shaved another 0.2-0.3 but that was what they had for ultimate pace.

Anyone who dips into the 1:19's will be in very good shape. At least for qualifying.

I just say the facts, that Vettel and Alonso did 52 and 50 laps respectively, and the race in Catalunya is 66 laps. I don`t follow the whole day, so I`m not sure what was happened (red flags, other things) just pointed the fact that amount of laps both drivers do, did not match the race distance.
And now the assumption, based on your words:
You say, that they ending with no fuel on board, but that would mean they got to start with less fuel then needed to cover a race distance, isn`t it? You do the math on your own.. vbut if Alonso and Vettel say they ending with no fuel on board their races at Curcuit de Catalunya will ending 16 laps before the end of the race.

So where are all these great engineers then? Red Bull?? Don't make me laugh

James Allen noted the long run pace was slow. There is absolutely no getting away from this fact. The only caveat we have to hang on to is "we don't know the other teams fuel loads" Well this is hogwash. Sauber, Force India and Red Bull did race sims and on a full load was quicker than Hamilton. Until we hear where the car is deficient in comparison to the top cars, we can only guess. So far we've heard nothing about the strengths and weaknesses of the 25 yet.

qualy is included in a whole weekend sim. , they dont have to spell everything out.

or you think he did 1.20 on a half tank

they did qualy in morning, race sim. in the afternoon.... the times do look good and you are right that the Ferrari and Red Bull long runs were faster than Hammy

but Hammy wasnt doing a race-sim, we do not know what he was testing..... he never ran low fuel all day either and set his fastest lap while making experimental setup changes.

fact is we do not know what they were testing...

I was a bit worried but after reading Hammys interview, Im encouraged.. first he seemed smiley in that twitter pic, 2ndly he maintains the car is lightyears away from our S. Donkey....and talks about not going on same fuel loads as others

on the flipside, he says we don't think we are the outright quickest...some look at this as doom...but it is expected, no team is Brawn dominating this season, even Alonso hasnt said the Ferrari is for sure the quickest. He was this reserved after practice b4 winning in Hungary n Singapore last year

In summary, I feel better now than a few hrs ago when Lewis was posting them lame-ish looking times....

while Im guilty as the next Mclaren fan for being a little touchy and cyclical in my feelings about the 25, Id implore the doom mongering Mac fans to chill the f out and not try their best to convince the rest of us that its all gloom for here on , atleast till the end of the Barca tests (Zool, Ragged Edge etc)

the car couldnt have set the fastest time in Jerez (without 08 wing spec) and suddenly be 1 second behind in BCN. Yea bcn is more aero, but I dont think sht works like that.

how many more times do we have to use this

I have faith in Mclaren. That is all.

Also, I think the race is actually a two day race...Qually means a hell lot more now than it did in previous seasons.

jeezz man, you don't get it right...first visit teams websites and read pilots comments, then look up timesheets and red flags interruptions and draw your own conclusions...full race weekend carried out by vettel and alonso

I think most teams will have upgrades but Mclaren looks like they have major upgrades for the car. All these crazy gadgets we have been seeing on the Mclaren gathering data in Jerez and early in this test has most likely had a big effect of the upgrades.

Fingers crossed

Love it. I just got a picture of lewis doing this to his team in the meeting after todays test I GOT THIS BOYS!!!

no with half tank, but not looking for the best time possible either...

No hemos hecho una crono pura en cuanto a neumático nuevo para ir a buscar un tiempo mínimo, sino que hemos aprovechado la calificación para probar cosas del coche y averiguar cosas para que vaya bien en la crono y que, cuando le pongas la gasolina, vaya también bien en carrera

didn't do a pure qualy in terms of new tyres to look for the best time but we have made the most of the qualy to try things in the car and find out things to get along well as in the qualy as once you fill up the tank for the race

I thought this was a Mclaren MP4 - 25 thread?

It would be better if Lewis or Button just do a media lap which is miles faster than the fastest time of the week.

it's, i just was trying to explain this guy something about what happened today

Wonder if this is the official pit crew clothing now?
http://twitpic.com/15fy8p

Oh I get it now, whole race weekend, did not include qualifying.

jeeez man, you got to understand what was a race weekend first, then everything else, so please stop telling me what I`m doing, bacause at least I know what is a race weekend.

I agree. It's cool. I feel good, not great, but good. No disrespect to anyone at all but we'd do well to stop getting into 'panic' mode on this thread.

In fairness, it's been obvious since Jerez 1 that MM have a problem with the car. Not saying the problem is a huge one, and not saying the car is MP4-24 Mark II but they have been unusually muted as a team.

Comments made by Button and today's words from Hamilton simply confirm to me that while the MP4-25 is not a dog, MM know that it also isn't likely to start the year at the front end either. Seems their problem is tyre related (DC said he saw the car having "traction issues") which mean that on long runs MP4-25 will probably not match Ferrari and Red Bull for consistent pace.

MM are surely working on a solution and will probably have one sooner than people think (last two days of test; Bahrain Practice; or, within first three or four races) but I'm pretty sure they have a problem.

When drivers like Hulkenberg and Vettel, all say McLaren are not at the front I tend to believe that. The drivers are talking to engineers. The engineers are watching other teams as much as they are working their cars.

I suspect MM will be good in qualifying trim (i.e. not so far off front-running pace) but will suffer in races. Worst case, I reckon MM are the 4th Team at the start of the season (and finish an average of 6th-8th in early races) which is not a disaster. The real disaster will be if that continues to be the case at mid-season.

EDIT: The lack of test mileage by MM this winter has been one of the factors that I've been concerned about. Even if they're going about it in some weird "sciency" way, that doesn't mean they couldn't have done more mileage for development purposes. I am very suspicious that the lack of mileage was down to early knowledge of the weakness of the car and a need to focus on identifying and isolating it, to ensure that improvements can fast-tracked early in the new season.

Do you want to take it over to the Ferrari thread as well. The Ferrari fans might be interested in knowing that.

You guys are freaking out.

Even if the 25 is not the front runner you guys were expecting it to be I seriously doubt is the brick the 24 was. The season is freaking long and besides if the guys in the factory were able to transform the 24 into a winning car, there 25 should have more potential. All you guys have to do is maximise your chances early in the sesson.

I fully expect Lewis to fight Fernando for the title this year.

phish, if its slow, stick the bloody kers back on!

This is funny guys keep it up

If the 25's race pace is 1s slower than Red Bull then why does The Ragged Edge insist they are only .5s of a second of the pace?

Seriously almost everything that has been writen on the last 6 pages of the thread is inaccurate.

McLaren obviously were not on the same program as rbr and ferrari. This 25 is not the same spec as the one that they will drive in the Spanish GP in 2 months. They are not testing for it. For all we know they could've been using Bahrain setup for the Barcelona track, or they could've been seeing how the car works with the rain setup on the dry track. All we know is that this is a testing session and that you do not get any points for being winter champs.

They have 3 hours in Bahrain on friday to look for performance and fast laps on that track exclusively.

Come on, lets look at the facts that are quantifiable. Hamilton could not have carried more much more than 20kgs of race fuel than the Red Bull(worst case scenario), if Vettel did a race sim. IMO I'm seeing the same Ostrich stance from a few Macca fans, as I witnessed last year. The numbers do not add up. The last time we genuinely sandbagged, was for the 1998 season. We are roughly 0.4-0.7 off the 2010 pace, best and worse case scenario. I've been watching F1 too long, to not notice when a car is consistently off the pace.

If Lewis was ~1s slower during his "race simulation" (even though mclaren never do race simulations) why do you say that the 25 is only .4-.7 slower than the leaders this year?


Either say it like it is or don't say anything at all, especially since its only testing.

A week ago, McLaren was a pace car, now seems don´t is....

I don´t understand, even James Allen said the 25 was on pace, but now don´t seems it.


I think tomorrow and on Sunday, macca will do a qualy lap and we will see real pace of car on fumes.

But i think we are a issue problem in tyres..... i hope this problem will fix soon.

We need keep the faith guys!!!

Regards

consistently?

they were not in one test and you throw all your toys out the pram.

you are free to believe what you want to.... but pls dont persist trying to convince the rest of us that its a dog, when we feel strongly that it isnt, we dont think its the fastest, but it aint no dog...

its not even a matter of blind faith, but a matter of perspective...which IMO your posts dont have at the moment.

I wont try to convince you to change your mind... just pls stop with the doom mongering and wait and see....

in 2 weeks time latest, everything will be out for us all to see...till then, take a chill pill

If it looks like a duck
Sounds like a duck
and moves like a duck

It's a duck!

Hamilton is trying to pick his words carefully. Saying the car is a million miles better than 12 months ago doesn't tell us anything as last year's car was that bad.

Alonso says the ferrari is the best car he has ever driven, Lewis says the MP-25 is better than last year's dog.

Oh well, at least it's not as bad last year.

JB will have to drive a dog of a car as WDC - what is it with British WDC, they can't seem to be able to defend a WDC.

season hasn't even started yet

plus bahrain is a completely different track than barcelona, even last year they managed to salvage a good result in bahrain, probably not the fastest car out there, but a solid base to build upon

much better than last year!

but i am a bit worried by hamilton saying they can't do 20.6's

Jerez was a venue testing the tyres, whereas Barcelona is for aerodynamic efficiency.

McLaren's so-called off-pace may be due to this, this difference between the tracks. McLaren was quick last year in Monaco and Hungary where aero was not that dominant force in terms of raw speed but mechanical stability. So, they might be having same kind of aero problems.

Besides even yesterday the 25 had good times compared to the other cars that day. And in both Jerez tests they were very quick as well

I don´t want to cast doom and gloom, but strictly from my neutral view point, McLaren are in big trouble. They´re looking like a midfield runner IMO.

I hope Jenson does a 1.20 tomorrow

OK... I've been reading this pages and it seems to me that alot of people are panicking... but again there are a few guys who are so over-optimistic about this years car...i think were somehow down the middle... the 25 is not a dog like the 24... but its not a top 3 car either... so.. IMHO McLaren have failed to deliver a Top car.... no matter what u guys think... i believe McLaren facilities are the best in F1 and for them to fail to deliver a top 2-3 cars two years in a row its a FAIL !
Now... knowing McLaren development pace i think we will be in the mix this year , but i think there are some issues with the way the team designs a new car.

He didn't say they can't. He said, he doesn't know
McLaren have the best team
& the best driver (s)
& they can improve very quick
I'm not worried
look at the 2nd half of last season, if they had a slightly better car at the start...


It ain't over till the fat lady sings

This thread has gone absolutely nowhere in the past 4 pages, maybe even more.

At this rate, the thread is gonna be shut down.

I think the time would be about right, anyway...

I'm just wondering what happened to their innovative concepts never before built into a formula one car... either they're sandbagging, or those concepts are fail.

Just curious, but after Jerez (1 week ago) was the 25 believed to be outside of the top 3 in terms of performance? We're at Day 2 of a 4 Day test, what's changed?

No.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/f1photos/4389479193/sizes/o/

i know it's not over

and yes he didn't say they can't, but the car will only go so fast and he's driven it, he has no other reason for saying than other than in his opinion he doesn't think they can match that time

we'll find out in the final 2 days if it's as bad as it seems, hopefully if they are behind it's less than half a second and it most likely is anyway judging from the other tests

the date