Tag Archives: valencia

Feb201108

Rob

0

Testing for the new season begins

The 2011 began in Valencia as the teams set out to prove that their news cars are up to speed. Some teams opted to miss this first test entirely or run their old car, most notable of these was McLaren. While some may criticise that decision it didn’t seem to affect Red Bull last year who didn’t even attend the first test.
Robert Kubica ended the last day fastest, showing that the Renault may yet have some pace this year, though he may not get to drive it again due to his accident. The Red Bulls seems to be putting it some solid runs but the Mercedes car still doesn’t seem to have much pace compared. The picture is far from clear in testing though with different fuel loads run lengths and testing programmes at play. We’ve also yet to see some of the new cars for comparison.
Testing continues this week [...]

Jul201001

Rob

0

So Vettel is back to the top and Alonso was livid

The European race was nothing that spectacular really, dry, an accident – more on that later, a safety car and some racing. The end result wasn’t really that interesting given the form of the teams so far this season. What was apparent was how frustrated Alonso is getting inside that Ferrari and that a Lotus and Red Bull have very different braking points. Oh and that 5sec penalties actually exist.
The race itself wasn’t actually that great once the first few corners were done. Each of the cars was just slightly faster than the ones behind and it was spreading out, except that it for Mark Webber who had managed to find himself in ninth at one point. A few laps down the road Red Bull brought him in for his stop so that he could run in clear air and make up some time of the cars around him. That [...]

Feb201028

Rob

0

What does all the bad weather during the tests mean for the season

With three out of the four pre-season tests being affected by bad weather the teams will be well prepared for damp conditions but they won’t have done nearly as many miles in the dry as normal. How is a cold damp Spanish circuit going to compete with Bahrain?
I would imagine that the teams will have a very good understanding of how the new tyres perform in changeable conditions but they won’t have a very good understanding of the wear rates in hot conditions. Valencia – the only dry test is a street circuit and so will have different tyre wear rates to ‘real’ racing circuits and so it may effect the setup that the teams can run in the race.
The rates at which the engines burn fuel will also have been affected by the weather as the cars won’t have been able to push as hard around the circuits, this [...]

Feb201015

Rob

0

Two more tests to go, what else is there to do?

The 2010 formula one pre-season testing regime is halfway now with the tests in Valencia and the the first Jerez test complete. The remaining testing includes another four day test at Jerez (17-20th February) and one at Barcelona (25-28th February). The teams will then have a couple of weeks to digest the results and ship out to Bahrain for the first race on the 14th of March.
Over the course of the testing so far we’ve seen Ferrari show blinding pace at Valencia to then be over shadowed by Mercedes, Sauber, Toro Rosso and McLaren in the rain hit test at Jerez. So what can we expect in the next few tests?
One thing will be the arrival of Lotus and whether they can beat the Virgin car, and whether they can make an impression on the other teams, something that Virgin haven’t done yet. Virgin will also be looking for a [...]

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