First day over and Brawn is on top yet again.

Of course the likes of Ferrari and BMW aren't present.

Pre-season testing is just that, testing.
There's no prizes for being the fastest, and being the fastest doesn't mean you're ever going to be fastest when it counts.

The one thing I've learned about top-flight motorsport is that what happens before the season begins is rarely a true indication of what will happen in the first weekend. For instance I'm not saying that the Brawn will be slow, but I don't expect it to be fast because usually the only thing happens is that one thing is maintained- the status-quo.

One thing's for certain though - the car is the star. It's a shame we're not saying things like that Heikki looks really good, or Massa looks like he's struggling. That's F1 though.

Yes, we need to keep the test times in perspective. RBR, Renault, and Williams were impressively fast during the 2007-2008 winter test season, but they turned out to be mid-field runners once the green lights went up in Melbourne.

I think Brawn's pace has just shocked a few people and created this hysteria. They don't seem to have a back marker car that most people predicted.

Then added to that you have the reversal of fortunes at McLaren (we suspect anyway) Parts not coming in time, crisis meetings, and slow times just compound the problem and help drive the machine of rumours etc...

However I don't think anyone is in any doubt testing is just testing. It's still a very real possibility that McLaren could turn up in Melbourne and destroy everyone. Other cars have done it in the past, just back then we didn't have the hype machine that is the net to hype every small detail x10

Quote from sinbad :

Pre-season testing is just that, testing.
There's no prizes for being the fastest, and being the fastest doesn't mean you're ever going to be fastest when it counts.

The one thing I've learned about top-flight motorsport is that what happens before the season begins is rarely a true indication of what will happen in the first weekend. For instance I'm not saying that the Brawn will be slow, but I don't expect it to be fast because usually the only thing happens is that one thing is maintained- the status-quo.

One thing's for certain though - the car is the star. It's a shame we're not saying things like that Heikki looks really good, or Massa looks like he's struggling. That's F1 though.

I agree, but you can tell slightly more about the cars than you can about a driver having problems. Only slightly though.

Melbourne will show where the cars are pretty accurately (but usually with one or two teams doing uncharacteristically well for that one race!) , but I don't think we'll be able to tell which drivers are coping/struggling until three or four races in - patterns need to emerge for that.

It's going to be a very interesting season. The first half will be pretty good, then more and more KERS will come online and throw the accepted pecking order out of the window again. And all of this appeals more to the techie fan (as opposed to the casual "watch it because it's on" crowd), so us geeks will be loving it!

from what ive read the best thing to do is throw the kers out right away and design the car from the ground up to not have additional weight in it

I'm not so sure about this idea that KERS won't help a car. I am pretty sure a few teams are sandbagging their performance, especially BMW, in regards to their KERS performance.

I would be shocked to fund a non-KERS car winning the championship

Afaik the cars weigh the same with/without kers. It's just that Kers means u have less ballast in the car, to bring it up to 600 kg, which can be used for setting up the car.

Quote from samjh :

Unless the global recession lifts some time during this year

LOL, that's a good one.

kers gives around 0.3s / lap advantage
(50-80 extra hp for around 6 secs / lap)
depending on the track ofcourse

the thing is.. bmw has been working on kers way longer than the other teams have been. thats why ferrari didnt like it
and thats why i think bmw will be fighting for champ

oh and im not a bmw-fan!

You guys are still forgeting about the possible reliability problems of the KERS, its still in its early stages so even with alot of testing everything changes in race conditions, the worse weight distrubution could hamper overtaking and agility, and with Melbourne being the way it is lately the heat could prove deadly to alot of teams with unefficient packages.

Quote from samjh :

Yes, we need to keep the test times in perspective. RBR, Renault, and Williams were impressively fast during the 2007-2008 winter test season, but they turned out to be mid-field runners once the green lights went up in Melbourne.

But the cars were much closer in pace back then, so a simple set up change can make anyone at the top, the test results were seeing this year have been consistant.

Today's times so far:

1. R. Barrichello Brawn GP BGP 001 1:18.398
2. F. F Alonso Renault Renault R29 R 29 1:19.334 +0.936
3. L. Hamilton McLaren McLaren MP4-24 1:19.629 +1,231
4. N. Rosberg Williams Williams FW31 1:19.783 +1.385

They would all be pretty similar if Barrichello wasn't able to improve upon his fastest time yesterday. But he did, by nearly 1 second

Quote from RossUK :

Today's times so far:

1. R. Barrichello Brawn GP BGP 001 1:18.398
2. F. F Alonso Renault Renault R29 R 29 1:19.334 +0.936
3. L. Hamilton McLaren McLaren MP4-24 1:19.629 +1,231
4. N. Rosberg Williams Williams FW31 1:19.783 +1.385

They would all be pretty similar if Barrichello wasn't able to improve upon his fastest time yesterday. But he did, by nearly 1 second

This is good news. I really hope that some of the people on here that were saying Barrichello has had his day, are choking to death on humble pie right now.

Also, McLaren back on pace? Interesting

Quote from dawguk :

This is good news. I really hope that some of the people on here that were saying Barrichello has had his day, are choking to death on humble pie right now.

Also, McLaren back on pace? Interesting

Well hamilton's lap was on a 5 lap stint, Alonso on a 10+ stint, and Rubinho was hittin late 18s in a stint longer than 12-13 laps.

Talking about Ruben's having his day. It reminds after Massa's kart race event in Brazil where Ruben's won and he pleaded to Honda saying "see, I've still got it" lol

No doubt come Oz BrawnGP will get lapped with Hamilton winning, and we'll all be scratching our heads. Stranger things have happened, Khan beat Berrera for example!

Actually, would be interesting to compare these test times with last years. I wonder if Rubens fastest times today equate to Rubens slowest times last year? Anybody got that info handy?

Jerez tests, February 2008

Pos Driver Team Best Laps
1. Massa Ferrari 1:20.508 387
2. Trulli Toyota 1:20.801 285
3. Hamilton McLaren 1:21.234 501
4. Coulthard Red Bull 1:21.258 495
5. Rosberg Williams 1:21.293 584
6. Kovalainen McLaren 1:21.309 427
7. Webber Red Bull 1:21.368 553
8. Piquet Renault 1:21.443 536
9. Alonso Renault 1:21.454 628
10. Vettel Toro Rosso 1:21.679 432
11. Raikkonen Ferrari 1:21.722 234
12. Bourdais Toro Rosso 1:21.782 399
13. Nakajima Williams 1:21.796 481
14. Badoer Ferrari 1:21.808 210
15. Glock Toyota 1:22.155 357
16. de la Rosa McLaren 1:22.208 92
17. Fisichella Force India 1:22.233 290
18. Kubica BMW 1:22.299 425
19. M.Schumacher Ferrari 1:22.428 83
20. Sutil Force India 1:22.521 278
21. Heidfeld BMW 1:22.624 438
22. Button Honda 1:22.659 283
23. Liuzzi Force India 1:22.942 220
24. Barrichello Honda 1:23.169 326
25. Klien BMW 1:23.239 43
26. Paffett McLaren 1:23.349 45
27. Kobayashi Toyota 1:23.880 85
28. Wurz Honda 1:24.154 217
29. Hulkenberg Williams 1:24.222 112

Thanks Mr. Cliffe.

So he's ~5 seconds faster than himself, this time last year, and ~2 seconds faster than the fastest, being Massa. That's quite a significant jump.

Remember that the cars are bound to be a bit faster anyway mainly due to slick tyres.

Quote from 5haz :

Remember that the cars are bound to be a bit faster anyway mainly due to slick tyres.

I thought about mentioning this, but 5 seconds per lap? If nothing else this season, then at least the races are going to be a little bit quicker! Hurrah!

But a bit slower due to downforce restrictions - the aim was the maintain overall performance but decrease the reliance on aero to aid overtaking. Hence more rubber, but smaller wings.

I see, the teams seem to still be a bit quicker than their last year's cars though.

And most likely the slick tyres make the cars quite a bit faster in the slower corners, where aerodynamic downforce never had much influence anyway.

Jerez has a few slow ones, and I assume that they are using the chicane too?

Consider the weather/air temp/track temp/humidity etc... they all play factors in how 'fast' a track is. Even the water content in the soil has a bearing about how a track behaves day to day

So it's hard to compare like to like from over a year ago. However we'll probably see a trend over the year about how the cars differ in speed from last year. It does look as if they a quicker tho

and the fact that brawn gp could possibly be using a curved diffuser to increase rear downforce dramatically Still waiting to hear from the FIA regarding the few teams that might be running illegal (or rule bending) diffusers

If they wrote the rules clearly then they wouldn't need clarification. I'm sure ALL the diffusers are within the letter of the law. The spirit of the regs only comes into question when they write them badly in the first place...

The FIA have said that the diffusers on Toyota and Williams are okay, pending complaints from other teams at Melbourne.