The close of the First Pre-Season Test for 2020, and the top 2 on the timesheets for Day 3 looks eerily familiar, while the rest of the placings look strangely out of place:
KMag binned his Haas early on in the afternoon running, and ended his test session after just 4 laps:
Other red flaggers today were Sebastian Vettel who suffered an engine issues in the SF1000 early on in the day. The power unit was quickly stripped out and sent for an autopsy back at Maranello. Vettel came back out in the afternoon session and continued to the rather strange Ferrari approach to this test - slowish, consistent laps throughout. Despite missing a chunk of testing time, he still managed to accumulate 100 laps, but his fastest of those was only good enough for P13 today.
We’ve seen from the performance of the Alfa Romeo, and from the speedtrap times posted earlier today, that the Ferrari has some decent speed in it. But after the faulty engine this morning, and their relative low placings in both overall test timesheets and lap counts, I’m pretty sure that the post-test analysis from many of the F1 punditry will already be bleating on about how bad the 2020 Ferrari really is, and how terrible their season will be.
The teams all scurry back to their bases for a few days, before returning to Catalunya next Wednesday for the 2nd and final 3 days of testing. Just 2 weeks after that and we’ll be racing for real again! Can’t wait.
Lots of undulations and blind corners, like that they’ve kept so many gravel traps, and that banking in the final turn onto the main straight is going to be epic. Trying to confirm where the DRS zone/s will be and how they’ll impact on the final turn.
It has a fantastic flowing feel to it, doesn’t it? Not sure if it’s really wide enough for too much side-by-side stuff, especially through the first half with all the corner after corner bits - in the race it could turn out to be a bit processional through there. But the last bit into the final turn and the first turn at the end of the main straight should be good overtaking spots. And I think qualifying runs, if you get a decent enough gap from other cars, will be fantastic.
Also, the physically smaller cars in the F2 and F3 fields, together with some of those drivers’, let’s say “robust” driving, should make those races pretty good viewing too.
Yea I totally agree
For me the best is the altitude changes, the banking on some corners, I like the flow of the track, hopefully the guys will take chances. I also just hope that they get the track up and running fast so that its not a totally green track when the F1 starts
On that subject, the one that’s worrying me more is Hanoi - the Vietnam GP is a month earlier than the Netherlands. But there’s nothing even vaguely similar that I can find in terms of a tour of the circuit. Latest thing I can find are pics of the pit building (which admittedly looks fantastic) from a month ago. But no video of anyone cruising round the circuit, even with a bunch of hazard cones in the way.
Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya have confirmed a couple of those TBCs, at least for tomorrow. And other than Grosjean in the Haas, it looks like double duties across the board:
Haha thanks for the article though. Also there’s a F1 festival going to happen in Sandton end of March if you guys want to do an article for that too. The more F1 articles the better!
