Winter Testing Thread

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Blake

Blake

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Well winter testing is underway, and I guess we need a thread to stop those random thoughts and bits of information spilling out all over the F1 forum.

My first random bits of information from the first day of testing…

Michelin leave the sport, and corner speeds plummet. Now that everyone is on Bridgestone tyres they have really slowed things down, the new tyres lapping 3 seconds a lap slower around the Circuit de Catalunya. Thus, the FIA get their wish of what is basically a control tyre.

I believe that Bridgestone are only giving the teams 1 tyre construction throughout winter testing, but I can’t remember where I read that.

Oh, and lap times for reference: June 2006 – First Winter Test.

Piquet Jr. is also doing pretty well, beating Kovalainen again.

Super Aguri were running a 2006 Honda, maybe with some Super Aguri bits somewhere. Davidson was only 1.2s slower than Barrichello.

Oh, and Webber beat DC on his first RBR test, which is encouraging. Kudos to Frank for letting Webber out of his contract before the year is out. 👍

Thoughts? Random winter bits? Post ’em here.
 
Super Aguri on par with Renault is a nice sight, if they keep the development up to the level Honda did towards the end of the season then they could be in for a intresting season.

Ferrari and McLaren on top as I expected really, but behind them it's really close between Honda and BMW, should be a great fight throughout testing, and hopefully 2007.

Oh and I love Klien's new helmet:

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And the rumours and speculation have been true, Mika Hakkinen will test for McLaren on Thursday – driving an F1 car for the first time since 2001. This will be a good experience for Mika, to see how much F1 cars have changed in 5 years.
 
Omnis
is Klein on honda now or SuperA?
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Yep Klien is now Honda's official Reserve and Test Driver.

Massa continues to be fastest, almost a second faster than second. :scared:
 
Blake
And the rumours and speculation have been true, Mika Hakkinen will test for McLaren on Thursday – driving an F1 car for the first time since 2001. This will be a good experience for Mika, to see how much F1 cars have changed in 5 years.
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Way to beat me to it. :grumpy:
It'll be good to see how Mika does after not driving an F1 car since 2001.
 
Blake
And the rumours and speculation have been true, Mika Hakkinen will test for McLaren on Thursday – driving an F1 car for the first time since 2001. This will be a good experience for Mika, to see how much F1 cars have changed in 5 years.
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This is very good news, he was always my favorite driver, always very fast. Does this mean there is a possibility of him maybe racing in F1 again somewhere in the future?

Blake
Oh, and Webber beat DC on his first RBR test, which is encouraging.
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This doesnt really surprise me, I expect Webber to dominate DC for the majority of the 2007 season.
 
And the final result:

Mika Hakkinen: 1:19.3
Lewis Hamilton: 1:17.0

Bye bye Mika better luck next time. :sly:
 
Hamilton.

Hakkinen had his chance and his already won 3? world championships, His time is up, Now its time for Hamilton.
 
I'd love to see Hakkinen back. Hamilton maybe faster but he's younger, he'll get more chances.
 
Bee
And the final result:

Mika Hakkinen: 1:19.3
Lewis Hamilton: 1:17.0

Bye bye Mika better luck next time.
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You probably know but i'll say it anyway, these times cant be taken seriously, it is only testing, either car could have had any number of different settings, or had different engines, or different fuel loads, or many other different things. Unless we can know they had similar setups then it means nothing.
 
east
You probably know but i'll say it anyway, these times cant be taken seriously, it is only testing, either car could have had any number of different settings, or had different engines, or different fuel loads, or many other different things. Unless we can know they had similar setups then it means nothing.
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I will tell you that he did all 79 laps on 1 set of tyres, so by the time he got to grips with the car the tyres would not have been where they needed to be for him to set competitive lap times.

Also I think he would have been taking things very slowly, because he will gain absolutely nothing by pushing hard and making a mistake.
 
Blake
I will tell you that he did all 79 laps on 1 set of tyres, so by the time he got to grips with the car the tyres would not have been where they needed to be for him to set competitive lap times.

Also I think he would have been taking things very slowly, because he will gain absolutely nothing by pushing hard and making a mistake.
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Too true. Although it'd be good to see Mika back racing, i think his best is behind him. It would be nice to see him doing testing though, as his feedback would be really good, and he may also be able to help Alonso.

OK, spontanious question: Is Alonso better that Hakkinen? :sly:
 
east
You probably know but i'll say it anyway, these times cant be taken seriously, it is only testing, either car could have had any number of different settings, or had different engines, or different fuel loads, or many other different things. Unless we can know they had similar setups then it means nothing.
Click to expand...
I would put the difference down to MH having been in DTm for the last few years and LH has been doing single seaters for years now. Plus LH has had a fair bit of testing prior.
 
Hamilton fastest today at Jerez. Raikkonen was also present at the test for Ferrari, but didn't run.

Code: 
Pos  Driver        Team                      Time      Laps
 1.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:18.684   78
 2.  Fisichella    Renault              (B)  1:19.685   63
 3.  Barrichello   Honda                (B)  1:19.784  111
 4.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:19.962  105
 5.  R.Schumacher  Toyota               (B)  1:20.024   70
 6.  Massa         Ferrari              (B)  1:20.046   60
 7.  Klien         Honda                (B)  1:20.055   99
 8.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:20.141   64
 9.  Heidfeld      BMW-Sauber           (B)  1:20.167   97
10.  Kovalainen    Renault              (B)  1:20.204   78
11.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber           (B)  1:20.461   88
12.  Badoer        Ferrari              (B)  1:20.556  107
13.  Webber        Red Bull-Ferrari     (B)  1:20.596   89
14.  Davidson      Super Aguri-Honda    (B)  1:20.701  112
15.  Speed         Toro Rosso-Cosworth  (B)  1:21.134   59
16.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Ferrari     (B)  1:21.276   78
17.  Kobayashi     Toyota               (B)  1:21.292   53
 
Bee
And the final result:

Mika Hakkinen: 1:19.3
Lewis Hamilton: 1:17.0

Bye bye Mika better luck next time. :sly:
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Mike is from Finland, so his tires were colder.
 
Today's (Friday) testing results at Jerez:

Code: 
Pos  Driver        Team                      Time      Laps
 1.  Barrichello   Honda                (B)  1:20.008   65
 2.  Rossiter      Honda                (B)  1:20.171  108
 3.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:20.325   79
 4.  R.Schumacher  Toyota               (B)  1:20.339   61
 5.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:20.342   84
 6.  Kovalainen    Renault              (B)  1:20.372   70
 7.  Fisichella    Renault              (B)  1:20.390   88
 8.  Heidfeld      BMW-Sauber           (B)  1:20.436  110
 9.  Davidson      Super Aguri-Honda    (B)  1:20.542   87
10.  Glock         BMW-Sauber           (B)  1:20.785  105
11.  Kobayashi     Toyota               (B)  1:20.978   70
12.  Webber        Red Bull-Ferrari     (B)  1:20.985   79
13.  Massa         Ferrari              (B)  1:21.143   46
14.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Ferrari     (B)  1:21.325   63
15.  Badoer        Ferrari              (B)  1:21.327   43
16.  Speed         Toro Rosso-Cosworth  (B)  1:21.327   51
17.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:23.600   16

Nice to see Honda and Hamilton topping the times 👍
 
Honda done very well 👍 Rossiter has impressed me this week, done some very nice, tidy work.
 
The Stig Tests for McLaren!

66745.jpg
66748.jpg


Well… okay, it’s Alonso. He has been released from his contract in time to do the years final day of testing. It’s the first time I can remember seeing a car completely unbranded for something like this, normally it’s just a racing suit with no sponsors on it…
 
Blake
The Stig Tests for McLaren!
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lol. that was my first thought when I saw those pics on another website.

in other news. the test today was pretty interesting. first off, Hamilton was quicker than Alonso by 3 tenths. sure, it was Alonso's first time testing the MercLaren, but still, he's a double world champ. Lewis hasn't even started his first GP yet. I wonder if he'll be fighting for the championship right out of the box.

Bourdais also had a second test with Toro Rosso today and he set a time two seconds quicker than Scott Speed! he was still one second quicker than Liuzzi, though.

also, Marco Andretti also has his first test with Honda F1. his very first time in an F1 car, and he was only two seconds off Christian Klien's time. and Klien did twice the number of laps! Marco did 67 laps, and Klien did 121! I belive he will have a spot in F1 in the coming years. he's probably going to be the next American World Champion, unless Scott catches a break and gets a decent ride.

http://f1.racing-live.com/f1/en/headlines/news/detail/061215174015.shtml





Joseph.
 

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