36 responses to “#F1 Testing: Bahrain Day 3 – Mercedes continues their onslaught”

1. Interesting about Renault. I wonder if their lack of pace is directly related to not being able to use their ERS properly?

   • Given that the combined ERS is supposed to give an additional 160 bhp for 33 sec/lap yes, IMO, quite likely.

     Two other questions that also arise are: 1 is partial ERS use possible till Renault mend their engine? 2 to what extent are certain engine maps (see the stoichiometry discussion in comments the other day) not usable for Renault engines at this point?

   • Yes, it appears to be related to the issue that the Judge reported from Jerez paddock…

     What’s interesting is that Renault and their teams have not yet compensated for that issue… Scarborough said Monday night that Jerez taught Renault that the power from the ERS was hitting too hard and too fast. Yesterday evening Kobayashi said that problem continues.

     We could have expected for Renault and their teams to have figured out how to smooth out that power delivery in the days since Jerez if the problem is just a simple controller programming issue.

     It’s very perplexing to try understand the exact nature of their problem, as there is not enough information out to know it.

     • 20 weeks … tick tock tick tock 🙂

2. If it was me, I’d be married a long time ago with Jessica mitchibata. Definitely one of the prettiest driver wifes/girlfriends. Although the latest of alonso wasn’t bad at all 😜

   • May I remind you that Sutil also has good taste 😉

     • Oh yes. I forgot about her!

   • To skinny, both of them 😉

     • You prefer comfort above speed Enzo? You sound like a Mercedes man not a Ferrari man 😛

       • Let’s pretend you didn’t just say that…
         I think “curvy” was the word you were looking for 😉

         • ah! That is right, a Ferrari is definitely more curvy than a Mercedes 😉

3. Vortex Motio / Mattp55, anything about Speed Trap?

   • Hi Will. Apparently Alonso got 336.4kph, 22.2kph faster than last year. Interesting that they are so much slower in laptimes, 1.9s off last year’s pole yet so fast on the straight. Maybe the tyres are slowing them down through the corners and they also struggle to get the power down (not just Renault then)

     Rosberg reckons they can get 360kph at Monza 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂

     • I’ve only seen that one figure, also. Ironically, I was looking for that type of data last night, so was glad to see Tobias share that.

       Nico’s comment about Monza helps put in perspective Renault’s problems. At Bahrain these cars are not reaching their terminal velocity, they’re still accelerating through the speed trap.

       It means that the straights at Bahrain, (and most F1 tracks) are acceleration contests, not top speed (terminal velocity) contests.

       Given the power to weight ratio, not being able to get on the power as early as one’s competitors is a significant disadvantage.

       So we may be looking at two different reasons combined together for Renault’s lack of pace:
       1) Poor acceleration due to uneven torque causing loss of traction
       2) Less power – As the Judge’s source mentioned in Jerez, Renault will turn down the wick so the motors survive.

       That may be why the comparative performance is pretty ugly…

       • Probably both if we look closely what Kamui said yesterday.

       • I found this link on F1 technical about topspeeds. http://goo.gl/0VY5vr

         Money paragraph (apologies for google translate funkiness)

         “Renault team lag 35 km / h after
         The top speed on the straights to tell yet another story. Compared to the Mercedes – and Ferrari team cars starve with Renault engines outright. Jean-Eric Vergne was with 308.5 km / h the fastest in the Renault camp. Sebastian Vettel and Kamui Kobayashi were missing 35 km / h on Alonso. The Red Bull driver came to 301.6 km / h Kobayashi turned in 301.5 km / h over the finish line. Renault allows its customers for security reasons only throttled speeds. Since Vettel, Vergne, Grosjean, Kobayashi and Co. so is still enough room for improvement.”

         There was also this
         “Alonso was well forward with its 336.4 km / h. Second fastest was Kevin Magnussen with 330.2 km / h, followed by Felipe Massa with 327.2 km / h One possible explanation: Alonso has taken a slipstream. But the Massa had last year during the race as well. So comparable conditions.”

         Mayhap we could get bruznic or verstappen to properly sort out the translation.

         • Great find!

           I’ll nominate Danilo to translate, as I admire his abilities.

           Besides the Renault speeds, it’s interesting thatt the McLaren was 2nd fastest through the trap… McLaren’s “mushroom” aero rear suspension has positives and negatives. The positive is that it should provide additional rear end downforce both in and out of corners. The negative was the extra drag. That negative should have shown up in that speed trap but that car was fast instead.

         • Yes, very fast indeed. Still, there is also a shot tweeted earlier of a timing screen by Lotus that is also very interesting: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BhAMU1SCUAAlwbT.jpg

           I’m pretty sure it’s sector 1 times, with the best at the top (Hamilton’s).
           One of the great frustrations of all the testing is the utter paucity of data for us to pore over. Supposedly there will be some kind of refresh that might offer hope for the future but the official line right now is that the teams own the data. All TSL-Timing.com are putting out are fast lap and avg speed, which makes getting a handle on testing very difficult indeed. They claim the info is proprietary to the teams, because they are paying for the timing systems. I did find one stint from LH on F1 tech, but no link and no idea where the times came from. I have spent several nights looking and nowhere have I found the information I seek. Incredibly frustrating.

         • I just want to add that top speed isn’t important (at all) at how many circuits does one really need to go fastest on te main straight? Correct me if I’m wrong but red bull won the last 4 world championships and they where never ever the fastest in any of the grand prix as far as top speed goes. But most of the time vettel (yeah that’s right vettel, not webber 😂) did have the fastest lap or pole. Top speed is an beautiful illusion to me. It’s impressive for the World to see, but it doesn’t do more than that. It’s not like to old days when you could prove you’re fastest on the straight and than block the way until your on the next straight. The fia won’t really alow that kind of thing no more. Of course I’m not saying if one car is able to do 360 and the other only does 200. But in 2012 we also saw differences of 20 kph… and yet the still came out on top.

         • yes, topspeed qua topspeed will not win a race, but in comparison to last year and each other topspeed says a lot about the aero and team priorities. Consider last year when RB began running their smaller rear wing and suddenly they were near the top of the speed trap while still turning in fastest laps. Clearly they had found a new advancement that let them improve rear DF with a smaller wing hence less drag, most likely a floor/exhaust development or the clever Kers mapping overcharging capacitor (?) to improve corner exit traction.

           Of note this year is the fact that Merc have the fastest lap yet are not top three in the speed trap. Clearly they have the corner exit speed and ability to brake late compared to rivals, but what kind of aero are they running? Lewis has complained of reduced grip, but others are quickest on the long back straight. And as VM helpfully points out, much of the contest will be acceleration this year as torque is spread out over a higher band of RPM and clever gearing and tricksy shifting will be required for optimimum lap times.

         • Isn’t lewis always complaining?

     • Hi ‘caballero de la triste figura’! There’s more to add in that mixture, the lack of downforce brings a large amount of straight speed, I remember when Bruno Senna was running that HRT and he was the king of speed trap!

       • Yep, and also not being able to get the power down in the corners mean due to the lower downforce. So how long will it be before we see the teams find a way to recoup the lost downforce?

         And then, will they be faster on the straights and by how much will the lap times improve? If I recall right the gear ratios are fixed this year?

         • They may not be able to entirely, given the inability to run a Coanda exhaust and blow the floor. But they will probably look for time in different parts of the lap, and attempt to make up through mechanical grip, gearing, and clever ERS use what they lose in DF. Though we shall have to see what shows up the last 2 days of next weeks test.

4. @ Vortex Motio and Mattpt55

   Please explain how –

   ” Lewis also mentioned in an interview that he felt the car suited his driving style and that he didn’t feel there was as much grip as last year. ”

   equates to –

   ” Upon hearing this Nico Rosberg quietly wept into his cup of tea, his biggest advantage over Hamilton from last year has apparently evaporated with the advent of brake by wire (BBW). ”

   Or are you – as they say in my country – just talking shite ?

   • TJ13 reported last year that one of Lewis biggest problems’ in adjusting to the Merc was braking feel, since he is a late braker it was hard for him to adjust to the car, frustrating him on more than one occasion. That quote indicates the issue has been resolved to his satisfaction, meaning the advantage Nico had re braking no longer exists. Also to get that kind of lap together while running lower DF is a good indication that the new regs will not be handicapping Lewis wrt to pole and quali.

     Though I like to imagine no teammate of Hamilton’s would be entirely happy to hear him say that the car feels great AND suits his driving style, in reality of course Nico and Lewis are friends so most likely Nico did not weep into his cup of tea, though he may have sworn softly under his breath. 😉

     • Dear Matt

       how do you know that this is the ONLY advantage Nico has over Lewis ?

       And I notice today that Nico was crying so much he was a second faster than Lewis …..

       https://twitter.com/SkySportsF1/status/437253280641466370/photo/1/large

       And IMHO your response is also bullshit 🙂

       • Manky, why are you getting so exercised over Mattpt55’s comment? Do you really believe that any team has pushed to the absolute limit on a lap? Do you really believe that Rosberg is a second quicker than Hamilton?!?!

         It’s all opinion; don’t get your nose out of joint whenever anyone else holds a different one to yours.

         • @ KRB

           there’s opinion and there’s bullshit.

           If the article and Matt’s response had said that Lewis was likely to be on competitive terms with Nico – I’d agree.

           But it didn’t …..

           However, saying that Nico would be ” crying ” or ” sworn softly under his breath ” – is bullshit.

           And my nose is perfectly in joint – your’s apparently is not 😛

           Oh and – ” Do you really believe that Rosberg is a second quicker than Hamilton?!?! ”

           Yes 😀

           Can’t you read ?

           It’s in black and white in the 10 fastest laps I posted …..

         • @ Manky, thank you for your mature and well-reasoned reply. 😀

       • Hi Manky, I’d start by suggesting you reread the original story once the red mist clears, I didn’t say Nico’s *only* but rather his *biggest* advantage which is, or rather was, Lewis’ not being entirely comfortable in the car.

         Second, and I apologize if I didn’t make this clear in my original reply, the remark concerning Rosberg and his tea was meant to be a humorous statement of the fact that having Lewis comfortable in the car was not going to make the job of beating him any easier, which in fact Rosberg did not manage to achieve last year on points or qualifying.

         That said, no offense was intended to Rosberg. Though to be fair had you mentioned this as this source of your unhappiness, I would have addressed it in a more straight forward fashion.

         AS for the rest, I’ve been out all afternoon and it appears that any other points I would have made have been already made by others.

         Hope that clears it all up 🙂

     • I was glad to see this quote from Lewis in this report, btw.

       Anything in these reports that is well written, intelligent, etc., is very likely Mattpt55’s fine work, btw.

       There were two things about Lewis’ happiness in finding his car suits his style that may be significant going in to the first few races:

       1) As Matt points out in his comment here, Lewis was slightly off the pace during the first months due to different characteristics of the brakes in his Mercedes. If a team can tune their car to give their driver higher confidence during corner entry, the reward in lap times can be very high.

       It seems that some teams are able to get their brake by wire systems working more smoothly than others. Unfortunately, good track-side comments about how these cars look going in to corners have been rare to come by. But those few comments indicate that Mercedes (and more so McLaren) look smooth going in to corners, as opposed to Sauber and others struggling with lock-ups, etc. So a possible significant performance advantage there.

       2) The factor about suiting his driving style may be that Lewis is able to be fast while working at larger drift angles. With last year’s tires, that really hurt him, as he struggled to find ways to be fast while conserving his tires. This year’s tires are a bit harder, and the data that Lewis is seeing indicates that he is pretty fast on them.

       The open question about that factor is on race day, will more aggressive drift angles use up too much energy to be a net gain in lap time versus a competitor who is tidier and therefore able to use just a little more fuel (because he’s not leaving so much of his energy in his tires)?

       • BTW VM – it wasn’t a personal attack on either you or Matt – both of whom I respect and enjoy your writings.

         Which is the reason I took you ( collectively as the authors ) to task in putting what is baseless speculation and disparaging remarks about Nico.

         If anything I’d have thought that Nico would have been delighted at Lewis’s comments, as they both have a similar driving style.

         This is not the McLaren days of Lewis with Jenson and their divergent styles and car set ups.

         And at no time have I heard anyone reporting that Nico was ” afraid ” ( or similar analogies ) of Lewis – so these comments smack of ” fanboy ” bullshit. Not decent journalism.

         And todays timesheets show that Nico most certainly wasn’t intimidated by Lewis comments. Quite the reverse actually.

5. Another great report guys 🙂

   • Indeed

6. Also this just in (not comedy this time) Twitter reporting that Lotus had gearbox problems and at best it will probably be mid-day before they resume running as parts are being flown in from Enstone.

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