Virgin pass on most of the testing for the second day

Virgin Racing have made it to the second test of the season but must be hugely frustrated at only having completed a handful of laps over the two days and still being wildly off the pace.
Being 8 seconds adrift is an age in F1 and if it’s because of the weather and the limited running then that is understandable but I fear it could be more deep routed than that. It’d be interesting to compare the Force India’s or the Renault’s first few laps to those times though to be sure.
It seems that their engineering standards aren’t as high as they need to be for F1 at the moment either with the front wing coming off the car during it’s first run in the morning. The team say that the cause has been identified and with the parts that they should be getting overnight then we should see more of [...]

What to look forward to in Jerez today

With the second F1 pre-season test underway and the initial times in today is the day that the formula1 teams have to knuckle down and get some work down. It seems like all but Mercedes, Toro Rosso and Williams will have been disappointed about yesterday.
With the weather set to continue as it is, raining and therefore wet it seems that we may not see much from the teams over the next few days. What I’d like to see from today’s test:

McLaren or Ferrari putting in some better times to ensure that the Mercedes doesn’t dominate,
Virgin being on the back of the pack not some outrageous margin behind,
Sauber picking up the pace again to show that it wasn’t a one off,
Red Bull moving off the bottom rung.

I’m not sure that any of these things will happen but it’ll be good for the seasons interest levels if they do. If Virgin [...]

Testing times in Jerez, they really are…

Todays test in Jerez involved all of the current F1 teams along with the first new team to show it’s colours – Virgin Racing. With last weeks test throwing up some surprises we’d expect this weeks one to be even more exciting.
The test didn’t disappoint – apart from the weather – there’s not that much comparison to do between the times as all the cars would have been trying out different setups and tyres to see where the wet/inter cut off is but seeing a Mercedes with Nico Rosberg firmly at the top might be a little ominous. Fernando Alonso would have been disappointed not to be faster and Sauber with Kamui Kobayashi stayed just below the Ferrari it’s just that time that meant fifth place.
McLaren and Jenson Button still don’t seem to be able to get it together with the sixth fastest time but Sebastien Buemi (Toro Rosso) and [...]

Rain forecast for Jerez test, who will the rain master be?

The second pre-season test is to take place later this week at Jerez, and the forecast is for rain. It’s a shame as it will render most of the comparisons meaningless as the rain tends to skew the times.
It does mean that the driver comparisons become more interesting though, with Michael Schumacher back will we see some blistering lap times for the Mercedes or will they just run tyre evaluation programs? Some of the younger drivers such as Sebastien Vettel and Adrian Sutil have been vying for this crown since Schumacher left so perhaps they’ll all be after that title in the test.
With Red Bull and Force India set to release their cars and join the testing fray along with Virgin we should at least see how last years title contenders stack up against the first of the new boys and everyone else. The Virgin will want to be [...]