Barcelona Test Day 3: Maldonado puts the FW34 on top

Pastor Maldonado managed to set the fastest lap time at Circuit de Catalunya today, as the ten drivers present completed the third test day here.

Williams is looking for every single hundred of a tenth this season, in order to put last years disaster behind them. And though testing times doesn´t prove anything, especially this early, it could look like the Grove-based team have something up their sleeve.

Pastor Maldonado set the fastest laptime today, and it was done on a early run. His 1:22.391 was not only fastest so far at Catalunya, but he alsomanaged to stay fastest all day. Second placed Michael Schumacher was a full second behind the Venezuelean driver.

Kamui Kobayashi came third in the Sauber, a good two tenths behind Schumacher, and fourth was Jenson Button on the McLaren Mercedes MP4-27. Jean-Eric Vergne came fifth for Toro Rosso, Felipe Massa sixth for Ferrari, Mark Webber seventh for Red Bull, in the exact same time as Massa, Paul Di Resta eighth for Force India and finally Timo Glock ninth and Vitaly Petrov for Marussia and Caterham respectively.

Maldonado said: “It was a good day today, as we completed all of our planned programme with no issues. We have put more mileage on the car which is great for everyone here and back at the factory as we now have a lot more data to analyse. The car is progressing well and I feel everything is going in the right direction.”

Hamilton happy with progress

Nico Hulkenberg might have been the top man on Wednesday´s test session in Barcelona, but ask Lewis Hamiltno who the happiest little camper was, and he would point to himself.

The 2008 champion did 121 laps yesterday in the MP4-27, and looked haoppy and confident, smiling all over his face, after stepping out of the car.

“I can’t remember last time I did that many laps. Definitely we feel in a much more comfortable place and confident that we can be at the front fighting with the guys at the top,” said Hamilton.

Though everyone is looking at how Sebastian Vettel and Red Bull will do in the remaining test sessions, there is no doubt that the difference between the stepped nose of the RB8 and the traditional front of the MP4-27, might play a part in the first couple of races. Many observers are waiting to see if Vettel, who has been compared to greats such as The Maestro Juan Manuel Fangio, can make it three in a row. Despite that Vettel looks faster than Hamilton, which the  Brit acknowledged, Hamilton thinks the competition will be close.

“I was always on used tyres and I think he started with new tyres in the second couple of stints, but generally he looked very, very competitive, perhaps a little bit faster than us – when he was behind me his car looked like it was handling quite well.

“I love the last test. it’s when the car is at its best and you know where the car will be when we get to the first race. It is always exciting because you know that the next time you get in the car it will be the first race in Australia, and that’s a fantastic feeling. I can’t believe we are so close.”

The new era of F1

Formula One Management today announced a deal with Tata Communications, which will forever change the way we experience F1.

“It’s the most significant moment for F1 since the advent of satellites,” says Eddie Baker, the man responsible for broadcasting F1 TV and data around the world. And boy is he right.

First of all, Tata will set up fixed line connectivity  at every single GP, and the capacity that FOM will begin with, is ten times what is now available. However, proven results indicate that it could be as much as 100 times what is currently available. But what does all this means?

Today we get the transmission via satellites, a fantastic way to broadcast television to billions. But even though the technology works fine these days, there are a need, a large need, for something better and faster. Tata has the worlds largest undersea cable network, and they are using MPLS technology, Multi Protocol Label Switching. It´s high performance  telecommunications network that directs the data from one node to another, based on a short path, rather on long network addresses.

When the network has been set up, it will take  afew years until this will be the way world feed TV pictures are broadcast. That means no delays from satelittes or other interference. It is always on, or as James Allen writes: “It increases the amount of connectivity time, as it’s always on, unlike a satellite which is on for a matter of hours and it’s bi-directional, which means it allows the audience to interact with the sport, rather than sit back and consume. It means the sport can have individual relationships with fans, can supply content on a global and even individual basis, looking well down the line.”

“It gives him[Ecclestone] the ability to be able to do whatever rights deals he feels are right without limitations,” said Eddie Baker. “That means he can assess every opportunity, he can react to every opportunity, he can move with the times in perhaps a way that we were not able to do in the past.”

“Formula 1 requires fast and secure connectivity, because even a split second of downtime can have huge repercussions for its business, brand and reputation,” said Vinod Kumar, Managing Director and CEO of Tata Communications. “This delivery is at the heart of our organisation and working with one of the world’s most highly technical and innovative organisations is an exciting opportunity for Tata Communications. The collaboration leverages our technology leadership and vision for emerging markets and represents a tremendous opportunity for growth and innovation for both companies.”

Barcelona Test Day 2: Hulkenberg ahead

Sorry folks, but I have no time to spare, so I will instead just copy-paste from the excellent GPUpdate.net.

“Force India and Nico Hülkenberg topped the timesheets as Formula 1’s winter testing period continued in Barcelona on Wednesday. The German shot ahead as he fitted a set of Super Soft tyres. However it was double World Champion Sebastian Vettel who made the biggest impression, as his day officially ended in third spot.

Once again, gloves and hats were the name of the game for Spanish track officials, spectators and most of those working in Catalonia, although another chilly morning soon become a comfortable afternoon of sunshine and blue skies as ambient temperatures moved into the mid-teens.

Caterham was first on-track once again, with Vitaly Petrov having a debut drive with his new team; this included a selection of new car parts after Heikki Kovalainen ran into trouble with a rear suspension failure on Tuesday. Hülkenberg, back in F1 after being dropped by Williams in 2010, started as he meant to continue by recording the first lap time.

Fernando Alonso and Ferrari led the way after the first hour, with Vettel soon moving ahead as Hamilton took third from Hülkenberg. Cementing that the order in testing is somewhat meaningless, with all teams’ fuel loads are car setups remaining highly secretive, both the Force India and Sergio Pérez for Sauber jumped up to the top two, fitting Pirelli’s new generation Super Soft tyres shortly before the hour-long lunch break. Incidentally, Vettel was able to gain more mileage before one o’clock, having previously spent a lengthy stint in his garage.

At Williams, reserve driver Valtteri Bottas enjoyed a full day of running, attempting to improve the FW34’s pace in low-speed corners following on from Bruno Senna’s difficulties of Tuesday. Ahead on the timesheets but significantly behind for lap numbers was Daniel Ricciardo, who was forced to stop twice and therefore caused the day’s pair of red flags. The first came only 29 minutes in – its cause remains unknown, but the Italian team confirmed to GPUpdate.net that it was not related to yesterday’s stoppage. The Australian appeared to suffer more woes at half past two, with the car seemingly stalling in the pit lane exit.

The true pace of all teams remains very much unknown, as is so often the case in this pre-season period. Despite that, all rivals admit that Red Bull appears to be in front, with McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes perhaps all with potential to challenge for top three positions. Judging by the classifications of the six days so far this February, Force India seems to be enjoying both great consistency and reliability.

On Thursday, a number of drivers will be in action for the first time this week, namely Mark Webber, Jenson Button and Felipe Massa, with Scotland’s Paul di Resta taking the helm at Force India for the remainder of the test. Lotus, on the other hand, withdrew from the test after a major chassis problem was discovered on Tuesday morning; crucially, this deprives returning 2007 Champion Kimi Räikkönen of any track time this week.”

2 more years for Schuey?

After returning to F1 on 2010, Michael Schumacher has done such a good job for Mercedes, that they have decided to offer him a new contract.

Schumachers contract runs until the end of this season, but German newspaper Bild says that Mercedes are very keen on keeping the former seven time world champion for another two years.

Schumacher turned 43 in January, and though he is yet to win his first race for Mercedes, he seems hungry and interested in developing the car and the team around him. According to Bild, the contract has already been printed. All the team needs now, is a signature from Schumacher.

“Before we talk to any other candidate, our first contact will definitely be Michael,” confirmed team boss Ross Brawn.

 

Lotus snag is a really big problem

Lotus made it through just seven laps on the first day of testing at Barcelona on Tuesday, after Romain Grosjean said that there was a problem with the car. The team quickly stopped the running and retired for the remaining test session, but despite the cool approach fromthe team, the problem could be much worse, than first anticipated.

On the official Facebook page, Eric Boullier said that retiring the car was a “tough decision, but we feel that our choice is the right one”.

He added: “On the positive side, we have quickly identified the issue with the chassis and our design office has already devised a solution. We will be present at next week’s test in Barcelona.”

The team had originally planned to have the first chassis shipped to Barcelona for tomorrow, but they changed their plans after running some computer analysis on the two chassis.

Lotus technical director James Allison, said: “As a result, we were able to identify an area which requires some additional work.

“It will be more productive for us to carry out these modifications to both chassis at Enstone rather than send E20-01 out to this week’s test. We’ll put the right measures in place and we will be able to fix the problem before next week.”

That sounds comforting enough, but as a few observers have noticed, you don´t just pull out of a pre-season test, unless there is a much more serious issue. and that is exactly what BBC F1 technical analyst Gary Anderson, the former technical director of the Jordan, Stewart and Jaguar teams, said:

“To abort the test suggests this is a bigger problem than Lotus are admitting – and with the F1 winter test programme being cut from 16 days to 12 this year it does set them back. They have decided against flying the first chassis out so they have obviously discovered a problem with that too.

“You would have thought they could have fixed it overnight – chassis are made of carbon-fibre composite so you’d be looking to bond new strengthening parts on. That would have enabled them to run on Thursday and Friday, which would have been valuable miles on the new car.

“In my experience, if you can’t do it in 24 hours, I don’t think you can do it at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if this meant they needed a new chassis, which would make it touch and go for the first race.

“They’ll have a third chassis under way, but you can’t make a chassis overnight – you could probably compress it into three weeks if you really pushed it. If it is that serious, that could mean one new car for one driver in Melbourne and the other driving one that is patched up as well as possible.”

Barcelona Test Day 1: Vettel fastest

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Laps
1.	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull	01:23.265	79
2.	Nico Hulkenberg	Force India F1	01:23.440	97
3.	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	01:23.590	114
4.	Daniel Ricciardo	Scuderia Toro Rosso	01:23.618	76
5.	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	01:24.100	75
6.	Michael Schumacher	Mercedes Grand Prix	01:24.150	51
7.	Sergio Perez	Sauber	01:24.219	66
8.	Bruno Senna	Williams	01:25.711	97
9.	Heikki Kovalainen	Caterham	01:26.035	31
10.	Romain Grosjean	Lotus Renault	01:26.809	7
11.	Charles Pic	Marussia	01:28.026	121

Picture of HRT´s 2012 car

Not much to say, really. The HRT team is once again struggling to develop a car and get it ready for the season opener, even though the team said they were confident about the mandatory crash tests. Since then two crash tests have flunked, so all we have to go by, is this. And by the way HRT, thanks for not destroying the nose. Phew!