F1 - General discussion and 2017

[caroper]

Out on track at the moment: Ricciardo, Massa, Magnussen, Ericsson and Norbert Vettel's son.

 

[caroper]

Vettel's on a monster stint on these softs. His laptimes have fallen into the 1m24s, but it's no surprise – he's on his 15th lap. That's the longest we've seen on the yellow-marked Pirellis today.

We've been following Massa's progress with interest, because it appears the Williams is on a race sim. That's the first one today – and there weren't many last week. That's a good sign for the Grove outfit.

A little way into the final half an hour. Are we all settling into the final stages of a long run, or could we see some last-gasp performance efforts?

Ocon, Hulkenberg and Kvyat return to the track. Still Massa and Vandoorne plough on with medium tyres, Vettel on softs. Ricciardo's just pit, he was on super-softs again.

 

[caroper]

Into the final 20 minutes, and we have Bottas on a personal-best lap...
Bottas completes a lap packed with personal best sector times on a 1m20.924s. He stays fifth, but moves to 1.1s off Massa's super-soft best.

 

[caroper]

What of Vandoorne's afternoon? It's been a good salvage job in terms of mileage for McLaren-Honda, actually – a lot of medium-tyre running has moved it onto 76 laps and counting.

Still, that's half the Williams/Ferrari tally and Vandoorne's also 2.8s off the pace (although performance hasn't really been at the forefront of McLaren's mind).

 

[Willie Trombone]

Another Honda engine change for McLaren today has once again seen them steal the testing headlines for the wrong reasons.

But just how many PUs have they used so far?

"We're being told by McLaren at the moment that it's not as many as six power units so far," reports Sky Sports News HQ's Rachel Brookes. "We've calculated, and we think it's four or five that they've had to use during Winter Testing.

"Bear in mind that they're only allowed to use four over the whole season this year, and you can see the kind of issues they're facing at the moment."

PHLIP are they trying to break a record or something

 

[Genisys]

PHLIP are they trying to break a record or something

That is engine Number 6 or 7 now.

 

[Willie Trombone]

That is engine Number 6 or 7 now.

What? It's got worse since that quoted bit??
That has to go down in the books as the worst PU ever.

 

[Willie Trombone]

F1 testing 2017: Felipe Massa tops first day of second Barcelona test

Wouldn't it be nice to see Massa win the WC in a Williams. Definitely features near the top of my 'good results'. Mostly because he has to be the unluckiest guy in the sport but also because he's an all round nice guy and it's time Williams won something again.

 

[caroper]

So, Massa ends the day fastest for Williams – his morning benchmark, a 1m19.726s, stands the test of time.

Red flag right at the end – it's Hulkenberg in the Renault. He's stopped on track.

As that came right at the end of the day our first thought was that could be a fuel run from Hulkenberg. That's where teams deliberately run the cars out of fuel to help with calculations for when it's time to race.

However, when the same thing happened to Ferrari last week, the car was easily wheeled into the pitlane. That was from the start-finish line, whereas Hulkenberg's car is a bit further away – round by the final sequence of corners.

Inconclusive, then – but you have to say it's a suggestion of more trouble for a team that already lost a lot of time today to more technical problems.

We now have a full quota of red dots on the timing screen with the Renault recovered to the pitlane. And that will just about do it for us from Barcelona.

 

[caroper]

Felipe Massa tops the timesheets at the end of the first day of the final test, blitzing his rivals on the supersoft tyre for Williams.

It was also an encouraging day for Red Bull, who finally showed what pace they could have in store for us in 2017, while Ferrari continue to impress on the long and short runs.

Mercedes finished their day with their drivers in a somewhat disappointing fourth and fifth place, but of course, we never quite know what teams are holding back here.

Williams set the pace, Red Bull start to show their hand, while McLaren run into yet more engine problems.

1 Massa Williams 1m19.726s
2 Ricciardo Red Bull 1m19.900s
3 Vettel Ferrari 1m19.906s
4 Hamilton Mercedes 1m20.456s
5 Bottas Mercedes 1m20.924s
6 Ocon Force India 1m21.347s
7 Hulkenberg Renault 1m21.589s
8 Magnussen Haas 1m21.676s
9 Kvyat Toro Rosso 1m21.743s
10 Vandoorne McLaren 1m22.537s
11 Wehrlein Sauber 1m23.336s
12 Ericsson Sauber 1m23.630s
13 Palmer Renault 1m24.790s

Final lap count for the day, Massa and Vettel are joint kings:

1 Massa (168)
2 Ricciardo (89)
3 Vettel (168)
4 Hamilton (49)
5 Bottas (86)
6 Ocon (142)
7 Hulkenberg (58)
8 Magnussen (81)
9 Kvyat (83)
10 Vandoorne (80)
11 Wehrlein (47)
12 Ericsson (53)
13 Palmer (15)

 

[Polish]

suppose it can only get better

or not

 

[caroper]

Last Nights Video Roundups from SKY F1

[video=youtube_share;vnBrIfPOF8s]https://youtu.be/vnBrIfPOF8s[/video]

 

[caroper]

[video=youtube_share;VGXC5vpDuVs]https://youtu.be/VGXC5vpDuVs[/video]

 

[caroper]

Day Two line-ups:

Mercedes: Valtteri Bottas (AM) and Lewis Hamilton (PM);
Red Bull: Daniel Ricciardo;
Ferrari: Kimi Raikkonen;
Force India: Sergio Perez;
Williams: Felipe Massa (AM) and Lance Stroll (PM);
McLaren: Fernando Alonso;
Toro Rosso: Carlos Sainz;
Haas: Romain Grosjean;
Renault: Nico Hulkenberg (AM) and Jolyon Palmer (PM);
Sauber: Pascal Wehrlein (AM) and Marcus Ericsson (PM)

 

[caroper]

[video=youtube_share;kveXI7hTmsQ]https://youtu.be/kveXI7hTmsQ[/video]

 

[caroper]

No feeds are coming out of Barcelona so far this morning despite the fact that all the blog pages are up.
It appears to be a repeat of the Internet crash the Press Room suffered at the end of session yesterday.
Enjoy the Video Reports and I will feed fresh data as it becomes available.

 

[caroper]

SUNNY
AIR TEMPERATURE: 10℃
TRACK TEMPERATURE: 12℃

 

[Willie Trombone]

I noticed sky sports f1 wasn't broadcasting the other day too... who does broadcast the testing?

 

[caroper]

The feeds I use are:

SkyF1 - http://www.skysports.com/f1/live-blog
F1Today - http://www.f1today.net/en/live/f1/223071/follow-live-the-second-day-of-the-second-test-of-2017
Autosport.com - https://www.autosport.com/live/comm...testing-2017-barcelona-second-f1-test-day-two
gpupdate - http://www.gpupdate.net/en/
Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/formula1/
and BBC - http://www.bbc.com/sport/formula1

But so far I am getting Blank screens on all live feeds

 

[caroper]

OK:

Live Feeds starting to come online.

GOOD MORNING!
Good morning and welcome to day two of this test.