Damn straight! So, a guy walks into the doctor’s office…
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Well well… That escalated quickly! Merc have shown up with what appears to be a new car, effectively. Nose, front wing, barge boards, and sidepods are all heavily revised compared to what they tested last week. See pics below, changes pointed out by the little yellow hands.
So either they had this package ready to go all along, or they just set a new record for component design and build. I suspect option A, and they were just trolling everyone as usual.
Nose:
Wing and endplates:
Sidepods:
Barge boards:
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Lunch time in Barcelona. Here’s a snapshot of the morning session times and lap counts:
Ferrari and Leclerc lost well over an hour of track time “check the cooling system”, hence his low mileage. Hopefuly Seb can add a couple of laps this afternoon. The Merc, with the new aero elements that @Sweepslag mentioned earlier, looked as solid as it was on the first day of testing last week. Clearly not phased at this point about times at all, Lewis spent a lot of time on track working through their test programme.
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I see Norris beached the McLaren again… I’m starting to worry that the car might be a bit on the twitchy side.
I may be wrong, but Sainz hasn’t beached it yet, has he? Perhaps it is just him still getting used to driving an F1 can for extended periods of time. He is a rookie.
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I agree with hammer, I suspect he is just getting used to the car and his limits.
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Sainz did have a spin early last week, but missed the gravel trap. But yes, maybe I’m reading too much into it. Problem is, it costs the team valuable time. The car has been very reliable so far, so it seems a waste to lose laps due to an off-track excursion.
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Red flag; Bottas stops at turn 3 on his out lap. Merc testing the “team orders” button already?
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McLaren says Lando’s stop earlier was down to a loss of hydraulic pressure in the car. Hope to be back out on track soon.
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Pity. That’s their first real reliability issue so far, as I recall.
Here’s a P1 we haven’t seen in a while:
Sadly, 5 minutes after he posted today’s top time, Norris brought out the last red flag of the day as he stopped his McLaren on the verge of T2.
Today’s lap counts are reasonable (keeping in mind that McLaren weren’t the only ones forced to give up track time in the pits - both Ferrari and Mercedes had their issues too.)
Gasly - 136
Magnussen - 130
Russell - 119
Albon - 103
Giovinazzi - 99
Hamilton - 83
Stroll - 82
Vettel - 81
Hulkenberg - 80
Norris - 80
Ricciardo - 77
Leclerc - 29
Bottas - 7
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Me like very much!
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Just as Day 2 of Test 2 starts, here’s tardy me with the highlights from yesterday’s sessions:
And the finalised times and lap counts:
Most obvious highlight is the table topping time set by Lando Norris for McLaren. Presumably he wanted to impress in front of Ferndando who came to visit. Which he did well enough, and added 80 more laps to the counters at the same time. Don’t get too cocky with the P1 time though Macca fans… that time and those laps were bracket by 2 red flag causing stops for the McLaren - there’s still some technical gremlins in that speedy package.
Ferrari’s cooling system checks in the morning limited Leclerc’s running, but the SF90 was solid as ever again in the afternoon with Vettel managing 81 laps and a decent P4 time just in the 1:17s. The situation at Mercedes was opposite with Hamilton having a solid run in the morning with a raft of new aero parts to test. But for Bottas things weren’t so rosy in the afternoon. He only managed to get 7 laps in the session after an oil pressure problem brought him to a halt on his initial out lap. The team deciding to replace the engine entirely took up the bulk of the time he had available.
Red Bull’s new love affair with Honda continues to grow, with Gasly just 0.006s off the top time, and putting in the most laps (136) on the day. And the two Renault drivers also seem to be getting excellent reliabilty out of their new car with Ricciardo and Hulkenburg combining to put the team at the top of lap count chart with 157 laps between the two.
On to Day 2 we go…
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More rakes than on the back of a garden service bakkie out there today:
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Just to emphasize the point made yesterday by Norris, McLaren’s Carlos Sainz just set a stunning new fastest lap of 1:17.144 - that’s the fastest time in pre-season testing so far.
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How about the 1:17.144 Sainz just did? He is flying this morning. That is comfortably the fastest time of testing so far.
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And to think that 10 days ago people were wondering if we were going see times in the 1:18s. From anyone, never McLaren. With over 2 and half days of testing to go still, we’ll be in the 1:16s zone soon enough.
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So much to speculate about. The track is still cold as well, so it’s hardly ideal conditions to be setting quick times. So, has everyone been hiding a lot of pace, meaning Ferrari / Merc / Red Bull can go 1-1.5 sec faster still? Or have McLaren actually found some serious speed? The plot thickens…
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I suspect the others are sandbagging
Mclaren and williams will throw it all at the wall to see what sticks, since they need to get more sponsors
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