Well the third day didn't start well for Force India. Their newly promoted test driver Jules Bianchi wrecked their only VJM05 on an installation lap and to rebuild the damage they had to have a part shipped from Silverstone. Nico Hulkenburg was not impressed as they missed an entire day's worth of running.
Anyway, for the cars that did run it was pretty much a follow on from yesterday, nothing really dramatic or exciting happened really. Fernando Alonso lost out on a few hours running with a hydraulic problem on the new Ferrari but did manage to turn in some long runs in the afternoon session.
The pace setter of the 2012 cars on the first day of the driver switch was once again the Lotus E20, but with Romain Grosjean at the helm instead of the ice man. The E20 completed 117 laps, one shy of the overall session leader Nico Roseberg, with a fastest time of 1:18.419. Vettel and Hamilton occupied the next two places with Vettel setting a time of 1:19.297 in the RB8 and Hamilton less than 2tenths behind in the MP4/27 with a 1:19.464.
The 2011 Mercedes once again topped the time sheets with a 1:17.6 from Nico Rosberg as they continue to evaluate the 2012 P-Zeros from Pirelli.
Just a note about the times from day 2, If you are wondering where the sudden pace has come from for Mclaren, Jenson Button must've been doing aero testing as when you look at the average lap times from the session he is nearly 1 and a half seconds adrift of the RB8 of Mark Webber with Webber averaging a 1:22 dead and Jenson averaging out at a 1:23.49.
Friday 10 February 2012
Thursday 9 February 2012
Day two of Testing
Nothing much to report from the second day of testing in Jerez. Its all very much speculation in the paddock at the moment with nobody sure exactly what fuel loads and test runs people are running you can't really get that much out of the results at the end of the day.
A little tid bit of information for you though, in the first test of the 2011 season the fastest time over the 4 days was set by Rubens Barrichello with a 1:19.8 for Williams. Michael Schumacher set the fastest time in yesterday's session with a 1:18.5 in his 2011 spec Mercedes and fastest of the 2012 spec cars was the RB8 in the hands of Mark Webber with a 1:19.1 already 7tenths quicker than the top time from last year. The Ferrari and Mclaren are still down in the 1:20s with the Maranello squad insisting on twitter they don't have their eye on the stop watch but more on their telemetry screens.
Today sees the driver change with Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel getting their first go in the 2012 cars. Although this sounds tantalising, something tells me that nothing much will happen on track between them as they get used to their new machines and run through the test programmes set for them by the team.
A little tid bit of information for you though, in the first test of the 2011 season the fastest time over the 4 days was set by Rubens Barrichello with a 1:19.8 for Williams. Michael Schumacher set the fastest time in yesterday's session with a 1:18.5 in his 2011 spec Mercedes and fastest of the 2012 spec cars was the RB8 in the hands of Mark Webber with a 1:19.1 already 7tenths quicker than the top time from last year. The Ferrari and Mclaren are still down in the 1:20s with the Maranello squad insisting on twitter they don't have their eye on the stop watch but more on their telemetry screens.
Today sees the driver change with Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel getting their first go in the 2012 cars. Although this sounds tantalising, something tells me that nothing much will happen on track between them as they get used to their new machines and run through the test programmes set for them by the team.
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| Jenson Button at the helm of the MP4/27 in the second day of testing at Jerez |
Wednesday 8 February 2012
The circus is back in town.
I'm not gonna lie, I'm a massive Formula 1 fan and have been for as long as I can remember! This year's formula 1 season promises to be one of the most exciting yet with an unprecedented 6 world champions competing on the grid, 4 of whom have won multiple championships. The 6th world champion is of course the return of the 2007 champ Kimi Raikkonen, coming back to the sport for the Lotus (formerly Renault) team after a 2 year foray in to rallying.
Much of the pre-season media coverage has been about the Ice Man's return, questioning whether he still has the hunger and desire to win. My question would be did he have it in the first place? After the 2007 season he struggled to recapture his form as the Ferrari also struggled to match the pace of the MP4-23 of Lewis Hamilton in 2008 and the Brawn BGP001 of Jenson Button in 2009. Anyone remember the famous ice cream incident in Malaysia? He also turned down the offer of race seats from other teams such as Toyota (before it left the sport) because he wanted a race winning seat and a higher salary than they were prepared to offer. But now that he is back, the media seem to be singing his praises.
These last few weeks have seen a lot of Action on Planet F1, with high profile car launches and the official opening of pre-Season testing. Looking at the cars, there is a common and rather clumsy theme to the approach the teams have adopted for the change in regulation regarding the height of the nose of the car. The official rules specify a maximum height for the front bulkhead of the chassis of 625mm above the plank, a maximum height for the nose of 550mm above the plank and a distance of 150mm in which to transition between the two. This has led to the rather ugly and ungainly 'platypus nose' most of the teams are sporting this year, with one notable exception. Mclaren have pursued their design tradition of low noses in the design of the MP4/27 and therefore do not need to have the stepped nose as their nose and chassis design already is low enough. I have read in another blog that the Mclaren bulkhead could be as much as 50mm lower than much of the other teams. This is a completely different aerodynamic philosophy to the other teams, with the others opting for the higher bulkhead to try and force more air underneath the car feeding the diffuser.
The Woking squad have had a different philosophy regarding the front end aerodynamics of their cars in the last few years and time will tell whether or not the low nose will work out for them.
Another interesting turn of events was the release of the Red Bull Racing RB8. The defending champions probably had the most to lose from the aerodynamic regulation changes between 2011 and 2012. The regulations see the ban of exhaust blown diffusers, a concept which Red Bull pioneered in 2009 with the RB6 and designed the RB7 around. Adrian Newey probably had the most effective rear end packaging of any of the teams in the 2011 season with only the Mclaren coming anywhere close to consistently challenging the cars from Milton Keynes. Losing this has taken away a massive amount of rear downforce for all the teams that utilised this concept but RBR probably had the most to lose from this as they had been investing so much time in the development of it over the 2 seasons.
In the official launch pictures of the RB8, it appeared to have a regular stepped nose design following the trend set by all the other teams. However, looking a little closer and seeing it when it rolled out in Jerez yesterday morning they have made a few design tweaks to that area.
The highlighted area shows a slot gap in the nose hump. No one knows precisely what this gap is for other than the designers who put it there, the official line from RBR and Adrian Newey is that it is for cooling the driver and some other ancillaries as well as aesthetics. Take that however you like, but I'm guessing this slot will more function than just a simple air vent to keep the drivers cool.
That's it for now, Day 2 of official testing today so I will report back with any news!
ciao!
Much of the pre-season media coverage has been about the Ice Man's return, questioning whether he still has the hunger and desire to win. My question would be did he have it in the first place? After the 2007 season he struggled to recapture his form as the Ferrari also struggled to match the pace of the MP4-23 of Lewis Hamilton in 2008 and the Brawn BGP001 of Jenson Button in 2009. Anyone remember the famous ice cream incident in Malaysia? He also turned down the offer of race seats from other teams such as Toyota (before it left the sport) because he wanted a race winning seat and a higher salary than they were prepared to offer. But now that he is back, the media seem to be singing his praises.
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| A diagram explaining the nose regs from http://www.formula1.com/news/technical/2012/0/929.html |
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| The Mclaren MP4/27 from mclaren.com |
Another interesting turn of events was the release of the Red Bull Racing RB8. The defending champions probably had the most to lose from the aerodynamic regulation changes between 2011 and 2012. The regulations see the ban of exhaust blown diffusers, a concept which Red Bull pioneered in 2009 with the RB6 and designed the RB7 around. Adrian Newey probably had the most effective rear end packaging of any of the teams in the 2011 season with only the Mclaren coming anywhere close to consistently challenging the cars from Milton Keynes. Losing this has taken away a massive amount of rear downforce for all the teams that utilised this concept but RBR probably had the most to lose from this as they had been investing so much time in the development of it over the 2 seasons.
In the official launch pictures of the RB8, it appeared to have a regular stepped nose design following the trend set by all the other teams. However, looking a little closer and seeing it when it rolled out in Jerez yesterday morning they have made a few design tweaks to that area.
 |
| The Mysterious slot gap |
That's it for now, Day 2 of official testing today so I will report back with any news!
ciao!
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