Barcelona Testing 2019 (Circuit de Catalunya)

Insightful commenting by Chandhok. Note that he considers the Merc to have high levels of downforce along with Ferrari:
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14:00 Green light at pit exit - the final four-hour session of the fortnight is underway.

Driver updates/changes -

Mercedes: Hamilton in, Bottas out
Renault: Hulkenberg in, Ricciardo out
Haas: Magnussen in, Grosjean out

 

so it appears the only definitive gaps are about as follows:

Ferrari
Mercedes -.4
Red Bull -.2

then there's everyone else separated by about a tenth or two, and the advantages will change track to track. this will be fun!

 

Vettel stopped on side of track at Turn 3.

 

Still a mystery of who's strongest of the midfield, Alfa & Haas look good at first, now Mclaren, its all a blur

 

I’m curious about TR. Honda has looked good thus far

 

Hamilton just went about 4 tenths slower but on C4 compound. So much for how slow the Mercedes is.

 

Thanks. Yeah, seems like the Ferrari has become a bit fragile this week.

 

The midfield battle will change track to track. I believe McLaren/Haas/Alfa will have a massive battle and all will occasionally bother Red Bull at the power circuits. Luck will play a massive part

 

No one said it was slow but on C5 he couldn’t best seb’s time. Again we have no idea how much fuel either had on board but the Ferrari appears to have closed the gap based on the evidence at hand. I don’t buy the Ferrari is faster and neither does Binotto. I’m disappointed that RB hasn’t gone out as the Honda has been damn reliable.

 

Yep - everyone expects Merc to be fastest come Australia.

 

The cars are pretty equally matched, it appears. It's very similar to last season, where everyone expected "party mode" to be the difference maker, but it never really materialized (I'm guessing it was silently deemed illegal). I wouldn't put too much stock in this morning's results, as LeClerc was clear that he could have gone faster (and broken the track record), but it looks like a nip-and-tuck battle at the top, with a few teams besides Red Bull not too far from the top-2.

Happy to see McLaren on pace this testing season. Would be nice to see them and Williams enjoy a resurgence to the midfield, at least.

 

Not so certain about that, but it does sound like they have more potential to improve if they get their rear wheel steering working properly (will it just be deemed illegal if they do?)

I never bought that they were .5-.7s off Ferrari's pace. That's ridiculous. I believe Ferrari is still the faster car over a single lap, but I re-watched the report on yesterday's long runs and the trackside folks from Autosport said that the Merc had the faster laps (I know Ferraripilot posted lap times, but that was different from what was reported in live timing and the Youtube report).

I have NO problems with a season that will be competitive from the jump! The Scuderia will be right in it like last year, we'll just need to see if Binotto can eliminate the self-inflicted wounds (and if Seb will keep a cooler head in the heat of the battle...Charles seems like a cooler head but we'll need to see how he performs battling with the likes of Hamilton, Seb and Verstappen)

 

Well technically with the new aero package, Merc only had 4 days of testing with the new car. Also was 1.16.224 Ham's first outing on the c5 tire?

 

The Autosport reporters are morons. The lap times posted above tie in with what I saw from the live timings. That doesn't mean Ferrari have a faster car but Leclerc's race sim was faster than Bottas'. What you need to take into account (and the Autosport morons didn't) is that Bottas started his sim some minutes before Leclerc. Therefore, when they were on track together Bottas was sometimes lapping faster because his car was lighter as a result of being further into his race run. When you compare like with like then Leclerc was quite a lot faster. Of course that doesn't mean anything very much. Hamilton would likely be faster than Bottas anyway and everyone will be working on their cars before the first race and continually through the season and different tracks will suit different cars so who knows what will happen over the whole of the season. We'll start to get an idea in two weeks' time.

 

Ferrari 1-2 in Melbourne if they don't break.

Take it to the bank. Ferrari hasn't shown its full hand yet.

Toto Wolff better get a hanky to cry into.

 

I like the way you think. Let's call Kimi P3 to round out the podium.

I'd like to believe some of this week's hiccups were the result of lots and lots of miles from last week. The team should have enough time to get things tip-top for the the first race.

Melbourne: let's see last week's testing reliability with this week's pace.

 

My hope for Alfa is that on a good day they can take a few team points away from RB and Merc. You have to root for Kimi.

If Alfa is not ahead of Haas this year you would have to say that's a major fail. They will get the best updates, they have ex-Ferrari engineers working there, budgets will not be an issue, they are a well experienced team, and Kimi is driving who would blow Grosjean and Magnessun into to weeds.

Don't tell me they can't beat Haas.

 

Press assessment of late fast lap from LH—http://www.espn.com/f1/story/_/id/26111918/ferrari-mercedes-split-just-0003s-end-testing

The lap may well raise suspicions the world champions have been 'sand-bagging' -- the term given to a team masking its true performance -- although there is no perfect way to measure or compare either. However, the 1:16.7 Vettel set on the C3s before lunch and the 1:16.6 set by Hamilton on the C4s in the evening suggests both cars have much more performance left to find.

 

Can't take it to the bank because of reliability and "weird" Ferrari things that happen in a race, but I would lean towards Ferrari for the win with all things being equal.

I don't think Merc have shown their full hand either, but it *feels* like Ferrari have more performance in hand than they're showing currently (moreso than Merc)

 

Melbourne is unique and street. Too many variables at this point. Definitive nothing is for now. The beauty of testing and race 1

 

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LOL