Tidgy

So preseason testing has arrived and first day is done.

Mercedes are looking very very strong, Hamilton in particular again with a .4 second advantage and on the harder tyre compound.

Williams are looking to be the biggest gainers so fingers crossed they have a much stronger season.

Rusti

iTrader: (4)

Yeah been very interested in this new steering mode that Merc have been trialing.

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/m...lysis/4689046/

Tidgy

yeah i was reading about that, there seems to be a question as to weather its legal or not

Rusti

iTrader: (4)

Indeed although it looks like they are confident it is as its not just a concept part its part of the actual programme.

More here in the top video, however the rear suspension changes in the bottom video are very interesting

https://www.skysports.com/f1/news/12...des-cause-stir

Tidgy

Pretty impressive stuff all round by Mercedes. From listening to the vid its gonna be hard for people to catch up, if they even try

Rusti

iTrader: (4)

I think you could be right, that said Red Bull are playing games with their overall pace and we know that Ferrari do the same. Like you I am just glad the Williams seem to got their act together and are running decent pace at the moment. Mclaren also look good.

Tidgy

It was interesting that ham was on the hards, its appears to be roughly half a second, so that would put hamilton down to a 1.16.4 which is nearly a second faster than botas and thats on long runs so heavy fuel

Now on day 2 hes cranked out 103 laps in a morning, where as Haas only did 106 all day yesterday

Ferrari are def in low engine power mode, they are 10kmh behind other ferrari engined cars and i ant believe they would have an aero package that bad.

Admittedly we dont know who is sandbagging (mercedes normaly are), who isnt and we will only find out at the end of quali 1 in the first race

Tidgy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/51688538

Ferrari International Assistance strikes again.

Tidgy

peak times dont tell much

JDM_Stig

iTrader: (3)

I would get involved in the thread but for the last few years once Hamilton has won a few races people stop replying to the thread lol

Rusti

iTrader: (4)

There seems to be much less of a gap now certainly with RB, Ferrari, Renault, Racing Point and Mclaren. I also think its closer with merc than what testing would suggest, Ferrari are sandbagging like a b@tch.

Tidgy

well, guess we wont find out till may at the earliest now

Rusti

iTrader: (4)

Great shame I was really looking forward to it.

Tidgy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/52612216

well now, i called that towards the end of last season.

Rusti

iTrader: (4)

Interesting to see who takes his seat. If Lewis is serious about more titles then he will stay where he is.

Tidgy

yeah thats the big question mark. tbh i think he'll stay at merc myself, but thats more of a leaning thought than convinced it haha

JDM_Stig

iTrader: (3)

PMSL

Tidgy

And their off!!!

And ferrari suck ***** haha

Looks like merc are gonna run away with it this year.

Rusti

iTrader: (4)

The Ferrari is dreadful at the moment.

JDM_Stig

iTrader: (3)

Another boring F1 race then.

Tidgy

till the last 2 laps hahahaha

Rusti

iTrader: (4)

The midfield battle is very exciting and its great to see Mclaren moving their way back up the grid.

Tidgy

yeah thats goiod news, also seem to be williams have made som progress as well. Russell seems to be a genuine contender for q2 now which is a big step up for them.

I do find it interesting how badly the ferrari engined teams are suddenly doing after the engine 'agreement' with the FIA

Rusti

iTrader: (4)

yeah it seems pretty clear cut the batteries they were using were not within the rules (more capacity) and they were using more fuel than they should be.

Tidgy

thing that anoys me is they should have been kicked out, ay other team would be. but ferrari international assistance save their asses yet again

Rusti

iTrader: (4)

Yeah, I am all for clever interpretation of the rules (DAS) but bypassing FIA mandated sensors is just plain cheating!

Tidgy

tbh its more that they came to a secret agreement that anoys me, any other team wouldnt get that even if there was wiff of impropriety.

JDM_Stig

iTrader: (3)

Bull sh&t it was nothing to do with batteries lol
Shows how close you follow F!, They were able to fool and abuse the fuel flow meter installed by F1 to make sure they dont flow too much,
Ferrari were able to see when it was being read and were able to cause interference, at those points they could flow more fuel,
It was also said they flowed fuel to a spare tank and then used that later, but no tank has ever been found,
I have no idea why you thought it was a battery cheat?

Rusti

iTrader: (4)

I actually said both

While inquiries throughout 2019 centred around the trickery of fuel flow sensors, initial speculation focused in on the possibility of Ferrari running a dual-battery set-up that would circumvent FIA measurements.

Scooby-doo97

iTrader: (1)

They all cheat; some get caught while others don't. F1 has always been this way.

He's not wrong though as Ferrari ran a twin energy store setup (since the hybrid era began) and they were running them in parallel configuration to run more power to the MGU-K even though they are capped at 120kW. Then last year they obviously found a way to trick the Sentronics fuel flow sensor, so the FIA introduced a new sensor with anti-aliasing and full data encryption which randomises when the device makes its measurements (before it was at set intervals), ultimately making it impossible to synchronise any ancillary parts to the measurement frequency.

Shows how close you follow F1