| By Gary Anderson | |
| Technical Consultant | |
Finally, all 10 of Formula 1's 2017 cars hit the track together for the first day of serious running in the opening pre-season test at Barcelona. But to look at the timesheets you wouldn't think much has changed, with Mercedes fastest with Lewis Hamilton.
Mercedes has become one of the most successful teams in grand prix history over the past three years, and it's still among the early winners in testing having had an ominously good first day.
But when you look at all the winners and losers from Monday, some of the outcomes are a little more surprising than where Mercedes sits.
THE WINNERS
Mercedes
One thing is for sure, Mercedes is still very good! I was watching trackside during the first couple of hours of running in the afternoon, and interestingly Hamilton did his time without the shark fin on the car.
Valtteri Bottas did the first half of the day, completing 79 laps, and when Hamilton took over he ran with the shark fin newly added. He wasn't as quick and consistent with that on as I would have expected and was all over the place with lap time. But with the shark fin off, he nailed it. That might just have just been part of the programme Mercedes was running, but as the test unfolds we will see which direction is being focused on.
I was at Turn 9, the very fast blind right-hander at the top of the hill when Hamilton did his fastest lap of the day, the 1m21.765s, and he just nailed it. He was very precise through there, hitting the apex perfectly on that lap - although on subsequent quick laps he wasn't quite there and was maybe a quarter or half a car's width wider.
But the fact he did his lap without the shark fin is hopefully a bit of a statement that maybe it doesn't do that much because it can be negatively affected by the wind.
Mercedes will be happy after completing 152 laps. This is what testing is about, making sure you start the car, go out, complete your run and get back. Do that on the first day of the first test and you should be pretty content.
Ferrari
Things did not go well for Ferrari last year, so with the pressure on in Italy expectations are very high. After seeing the car that was launched, the question was whether the complexity of the packaging of the sidepods/bargeboards had gone too far. From what I've seen on track things are looking good, even though it's still early days.
Not only did Sebastian Vettel complete 128 laps, but the car looked like it has balance and grip. The long, fast, Turn 3 right-hander is a great test of a car, and the Ferrari could take a consistent line through there without running out of grip. That is a very good sign.
It's too early to draw any conclusions from lap times, but given Vettel did his fastest time on mediums and Hamilton on softs, assuming a step of about 0.6s from compound to compound (that's a good average historically, but we can't be sure with the new tyres), that would put Vettel almost half-a-second up.
I'm not suggesting Ferrari has that advantage and we don't know about fuel loads. However, on the track it didn't look as though the Ferrari was running excessively light. This does support the idea that it's potentially in the mix. And you never know, maybe it even has a real advantage.
The fans
These new regulations were supposed to make the cars look better and faster. Despite the shark fins, overall they do look better, particularly from the front and the rear. In short, they look more like racing cars.
While what racing cars should look like is usually decided by your age, this matches up well to the cars of the past - squat and wide. The cornering loads, as well as the braking forces, look like a step increase. Looking at the tyre deflection through Turns 3 and 9, the tyres are crying enough.
It will be interesting to see how the cars respond when the stickiest tyre compounds are run and how they deal with those corner loads.
The lap times have certainly come down. Last year, the fastest time overall in testing was Kimi Raikkonen's 1m22.765s, set on ultra-softs. Hamilton's time is exactly a second faster than that, and using the soft-compound Pirellis. On the first day of testing last year, the fastest time was Vettel's 1m24.939s, so already we are looking at over three seconds' improvement.
Factoring in the kind of fuel loads people are running, there's every chance one of these cars could just about do a high 1m18s lap around here - and some teams are predicting privately that we should expect "high teens" laps this week.
Another good sign for fans is that teams have been allowed to post short videos from the track - a first for Formula 1. Currently the restrictions on social media have only been relaxed for this week's test, but hopefully the positive response it is generating will mean this is just the start.
The midfield battle
Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari should be the top three teams this year, but behind that all bets are off. And from what I've seen, there are a good few cars in the mix.
Felipe Massa was third fastest on Monday in the Williams and that car certainly looks like it will be in contention. But if I had to pick a car that looked like it was going for a lap time, in other words running lightish, it would be the Williams. And there was a fairly serious jump in lap time from the morning to the afternoon.
We saw a similar thing from Haas, which looks like it has a solid car. It's impossible to judge fuel loads, and it's hard to say what McLaren might be capable of, but those cars, together with Toro Rosso and Force India all look in that midfield spread. I'd like to see a bit more of Renault, but there was nothing remarkable there to get excited about.
Sauber has done a lot of laps, but out on track the car doesn't look like it has got the grip and seems to run out of road earlier than most. It's not diabolical, but it shows the difference between the front and the back of the grid - and unfortunately that's where it's going to be based on what we've seen today.
So, the indications are that the mid-pack is going to be very close together.
THE LOSERS
Shark fins
It was clear that the rewritten regulations allowed the return of the shark fin. But it doesn't look good and it's a real shame that we have cars that look great from the front and the rear, but not so good from the side.
The shark fin certainly doesn't add anything to the car's aesthetics, and even if it works well the gain you might be talking about is a tenth of a second. And based on what we've seen today, the gain isn't even necessarily that clear with the amount some of the fins are moving around.
Why go through the pain of something so stupid? Just take it off and be done with it.
Pirelli
What we want to see is drivers lapping quickly and pushing hard, and while it's certainly true that you can get more quick laps out of a tyre, with some doing three or four fast ones before the drop off, there are still some concerns here.
Obviously, the tyre performance will drop off as the run goes on, but with the signs of degradation we saw it seems a driver will still have to drive within the tyres and not go too far over the limit on a longer run.
To be fair to Pirelli, low degradation is very difficult to achieve, but both Michelin and Bridgestone managed it in their glory days.
We'll have to see how the tyres perform during the rest of testing, but hopes of drivers being able to do lap after lap at qualifying pace don't seem likely to have been realised.
McLaren and Red Bull
The key to testing is getting mileage in and you can't do that while sat in the garage. Red Bull had a sensor problem that kept the car in the garage for a long time, although Daniel Ricciardo eventually managed a respectable 50 laps once a subsequent battery problem was also resolved.
It's hard to hold back a good car on track, and even if Red Bull was running an extra 20-30kg more than Mercedes and Ferrari, the 1.161s to the front suggest there is still more to come here.
Fernando Alonso's McLaren-Honda had an oil leak and he ended the day with just 29 laps. Fine, you can say testing is for things to go wrong, but with only eight days of running you need to make every one count.
We've yet to see the fundamental performance of these cars. I'm sure Red Bull will be there or thereabouts, and Ricciardo set some OK times as Monday's running went on, but we didn't see much from McLaren.
The fans (again)
How can the fans be winners and losers of the first day of testing? Well, while the cars are faster and look meaner, watching from trackside they are a little on rails. Not that we should be too surprised by that given the increase in downforce.
The only big moment I saw, other than a spin for Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton, was when the rear end of the Williams snapped on the entry to Turn 3. Felipe gathered it up but managed to get around the corner, albeit with a rough ride over the exit kerb.
But beyond that, the cars weren't moving around much. To get good racing, you need drivers to be able to get alongside a rival, outbrake and pass them. For that to happen, there needs to be a difference or a cause, and I'm not sure there's going to be enough moving around or mistakes to make that happen.
Look at how quickly people can get on the throttle. The transition from Turn 2 to 3 is routine, come in, brake, accelerate, change up and, at worst, all people were having to do is have a little hover on the throttle.
In summary, the first day of testing can never offer you anything more than a pointer as to what could happen and there is a long way to go before Melbourne.
But I always found that you had a good idea of how good your car was going to be on your first run. You can be assured that there will be some teams in the paddock who are cautiously optimistic after today, and others that fear a long, hard season.
| By Gary Anderson | |
| Technical Consultant | |
Finally, all 10 of Formula 1's 2017 cars hit the track together for the first day of serious running in the opening pre-season test at Barcelona. But to look at the timesheets you wouldn't think much has changed, with Mercedes fastest with Lewis Hamilton.
Mercedes has become one of the most successful teams in grand prix history over the past three years, and it's still among the early winners in testing having had an ominously good first day.
But when you look at all the winners and losers from Monday, some of the outcomes are a little more surprising than where Mercedes sits.
THE WINNERS
Mercedes
One thing is for sure, Mercedes is still very good! I was watching trackside during the first couple of hours of running in the afternoon, and interestingly Hamilton did his time without the shark fin on the car.
Valtteri Bottas did the first half of the day, completing 79 laps, and when Hamilton took over he ran with the shark fin newly added. He wasn't as quick and consistent with that on as I would have expected and was all over the place with lap time. But with the shark fin off, he nailed it. That might just have just been part of the programme Mercedes was running, but as the test unfolds we will see which direction is being focused on.
I was at Turn 9, the very fast blind right-hander at the top of the hill when Hamilton did his fastest lap of the day, the 1m21.765s, and he just nailed it. He was very precise through there, hitting the apex perfectly on that lap - although on subsequent quick laps he wasn't quite there and was maybe a quarter or half a car's width wider.
But the fact he did his lap without the shark fin is hopefully a bit of a statement that maybe it doesn't do that much because it can be negatively affected by the wind.
Mercedes will be happy after completing 152 laps. This is what testing is about, making sure you start the car, go out, complete your run and get back. Do that on the first day of the first test and you should be pretty content.
Ferrari
Things did not go well for Ferrari last year, so with the pressure on in Italy expectations are very high. After seeing the car that was launched, the question was whether the complexity of the packaging of the sidepods/bargeboards had gone too far. From what I've seen on track things are looking good, even though it's still early days.
Not only did Sebastian Vettel complete 128 laps, but the car looked like it has balance and grip. The long, fast, Turn 3 right-hander is a great test of a car, and the Ferrari could take a consistent line through there without running out of grip. That is a very good sign.
It's too early to draw any conclusions from lap times, but given Vettel did his fastest time on mediums and Hamilton on softs, assuming a step of about 0.6s from compound to compound (that's a good average historically, but we can't be sure with the new tyres), that would put Vettel almost half-a-second up.
I'm not suggesting Ferrari has that advantage and we don't know about fuel loads. However, on the track it didn't look as though the Ferrari was running excessively light. This does support the idea that it's potentially in the mix. And you never know, maybe it even has a real advantage.
The fans
These new regulations were supposed to make the cars look better and faster. Despite the shark fins, overall they do look better, particularly from the front and the rear. In short, they look more like racing cars.
While what racing cars should look like is usually decided by your age, this matches up well to the cars of the past - squat and wide. The cornering loads, as well as the braking forces, look like a step increase. Looking at the tyre deflection through Turns 3 and 9, the tyres are crying enough.
It will be interesting to see how the cars respond when the stickiest tyre compounds are run and how they deal with those corner loads.
The lap times have certainly come down. Last year, the fastest time overall in testing was Kimi Raikkonen's 1m22.765s, set on ultra-softs. Hamilton's time is exactly a second faster than that, and using the soft-compound Pirellis. On the first day of testing last year, the fastest time was Vettel's 1m24.939s, so already we are looking at over three seconds' improvement.
Factoring in the kind of fuel loads people are running, there's every chance one of these cars could just about do a high 1m18s lap around here - and some teams are predicting privately that we should expect "high teens" laps this week.
Another good sign for fans is that teams have been allowed to post short videos from the track - a first for Formula 1. Currently the restrictions on social media have only been relaxed for this week's test, but hopefully the positive response it is generating will mean this is just the start.
The midfield battle
Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari should be the top three teams this year, but behind that all bets are off. And from what I've seen, there are a good few cars in the mix.
Felipe Massa was third fastest on Monday in the Williams and that car certainly looks like it will be in contention. But if I had to pick a car that looked like it was going for a lap time, in other words running lightish, it would be the Williams. And there was a fairly serious jump in lap time from the morning to the afternoon.
We saw a similar thing from Haas, which looks like it has a solid car. It's impossible to judge fuel loads, and it's hard to say what McLaren might be capable of, but those cars, together with Toro Rosso and Force India all look in that midfield spread. I'd like to see a bit more of Renault, but there was nothing remarkable there to get excited about.
Sauber has done a lot of laps, but out on track the car doesn't look like it has got the grip and seems to run out of road earlier than most. It's not diabolical, but it shows the difference between the front and the back of the grid - and unfortunately that's where it's going to be based on what we've seen today.
So, the indications are that the mid-pack is going to be very close together.
THE LOSERS
Shark fins
It was clear that the rewritten regulations allowed the return of the shark fin. But it doesn't look good and it's a real shame that we have cars that look great from the front and the rear, but not so good from the side.
The shark fin certainly doesn't add anything to the car's aesthetics, and even if it works well the gain you might be talking about is a tenth of a second. And based on what we've seen today, the gain isn't even necessarily that clear with the amount some of the fins are moving around.
Why go through the pain of something so stupid? Just take it off and be done with it.
Pirelli
What we want to see is drivers lapping quickly and pushing hard, and while it's certainly true that you can get more quick laps out of a tyre, with some doing three or four fast ones before the drop off, there are still some concerns here.
Obviously, the tyre performance will drop off as the run goes on, but with the signs of degradation we saw it seems a driver will still have to drive within the tyres and not go too far over the limit on a longer run.
To be fair to Pirelli, low degradation is very difficult to achieve, but both Michelin and Bridgestone managed it in their glory days.
We'll have to see how the tyres perform during the rest of testing, but hopes of drivers being able to do lap after lap at qualifying pace don't seem likely to have been realised.
McLaren and Red Bull
The key to testing is getting mileage in and you can't do that while sat in the garage. Red Bull had a sensor problem that kept the car in the garage for a long time, although Daniel Ricciardo eventually managed a respectable 50 laps once a subsequent battery problem was also resolved.
It's hard to hold back a good car on track, and even if Red Bull was running an extra 20-30kg more than Mercedes and Ferrari, the 1.161s to the front suggest there is still more to come here.
Fernando Alonso's McLaren-Honda had an oil leak and he ended the day with just 29 laps. Fine, you can say testing is for things to go wrong, but with only eight days of running you need to make every one count.
We've yet to see the fundamental performance of these cars. I'm sure Red Bull will be there or thereabouts, and Ricciardo set some OK times as Monday's running went on, but we didn't see much from McLaren.
The fans (again)
How can the fans be winners and losers of the first day of testing? Well, while the cars are faster and look meaner, watching from trackside they are a little on rails. Not that we should be too surprised by that given the increase in downforce.
The only big moment I saw, other than a spin for Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton, was when the rear end of the Williams snapped on the entry to Turn 3. Felipe gathered it up but managed to get around the corner, albeit with a rough ride over the exit kerb.
But beyond that, the cars weren't moving around much. To get good racing, you need drivers to be able to get alongside a rival, outbrake and pass them. For that to happen, there needs to be a difference or a cause, and I'm not sure there's going to be enough moving around or mistakes to make that happen.
Look at how quickly people can get on the throttle. The transition from Turn 2 to 3 is routine, come in, brake, accelerate, change up and, at worst, all people were having to do is have a little hover on the throttle.
In summary, the first day of testing can never offer you anything more than a pointer as to what could happen and there is a long way to go before Melbourne.
But I always found that you had a good idea of how good your car was going to be on your first run. You can be assured that there will be some teams in the paddock who are cautiously optimistic after today, and others that fear a long, hard season.
