Tag: Mercedes

Let’s act like we know what’s going on in testing, pt. 2

Posted on by James Mackenzie

In this post I will, for the most part, stick with my modus operandi of not granting the 2019 F1 testing times too much significance. But it’s no fun to entirely ignore them so let’s allow ourselves to read a little into them, especially when it comes to the headline news of the front-runners.

Let me pose some questions.

So, Were Mercedes aCTUALLY Sandbagging Then?

The Mercedes cars did finally unleash a bit of speed but they left it until the final hour of the final day of testing. Ferrari had already packed up, after Sebastian Vettel was left stationary at turn two with an electrical failure an hour or so earlier. That quick run on the softest tyres left him just 0.003 seconds shy of Vettel’s test-topping time of 1:16.221 which, even by Formula 1 standards, is very close. Fuel-and-tyre-corrected lists have put the Ferrari around half a second ahead but I’m not totally convinced; the apparent differences between the tyre compounds always appear to be overestimated in my experience. And will the Silver Arrows still have their infamous ‘party mode’ once it comes to the serious business?

The Mercedes and Ferrari at F1 2019 testing.
The two teams have gone in noticeably different directions with their aero philosophies

From on-board footage, the Ferrari looks by far the easier of the two to drive – very balanced; equally happy in different corner types – and has done so since the first day of testing. An impressive feat with new regulations and a brand new car. My gut feeling is that Ferrari have the edge currently. Lewis Hamilton is unmatched when it comes to throwing a car round Albert Park on a Saturday, so he could well pull yet another pole out of nowhere, but I think by race day the red cars will be on top. One thing to bear in mind, though, is that Mercedes’ Achilles’ heel in recent years has been dealing with the dirty air when following another car. If the regulation changes have done their job, they may now be able to put up more of a fight when not in the lead. The rest of the season will be a story of who wins the development war and whether Ferrari can solves the operational issues that have plagued their last two championship campaigns. Of course, Helmut Marko would have you believe it will be Red Bull bringing the fight to Ferrari…which leads me nicely to my next point…

Where do Red Bull Stack Up?

Dr. Marko says a lot of things. And you get the impression a lot of them are just to stir things up – he’s quite similar to the ex-Godfather Bernie Ecclestone in that way. He has made a lot of ambitious claims of Red Bull’s impending success in the recent past which have not really come to fruition. But in fairness, this time round, the RB15 is looking pretty promising. It is a little harder to compare them with the other two of the ‘big three’ as they did not do any qualifying runs, but their long-run pace has been looking pretty good. Unfortunately, Pierre Gasly put paid to one of those on Thursday with a fairly hefty trip into the barriers. And it wasn’t his only one either. The young Frenchman will need to iron out those mistakes if he is to truly challenge Max Verstappen on the other side of the garage. He may be a year older than his teammate, but he has far less experience in the sport and the consensus seems to be that Verstappen has now added much-needed maturity to his undeniable speed.

Image credit: Getty Images

If my hand was forced, I would say I can see Red Bull matching up roughly where they did last season – nicking the odd win whilst also having some off days and a fair few retirements. Whilst their relationship with Honda has certainly started smoothly, Red Bull cars tend to ask a lot of their power units and I can see a few teething issues appearing once everything gets turned up to 11. Nonetheless, I think the Honda deal is a good move in the long-term and could see Red Bull as genuine championship contenders again given time.

How Close is the Midfield Battle?

Very. In a word. Renault, Haas, Toro Rosso, McLaren and Alfa Romeo all appear to be within a couple of tenths of each other, whilst Racing Point were openly running a very basic car for these tests, with many new parts coming for either Melbourne or the first of the European races – the return to Barcelona in May. With all the variables, I don’t think there is a lot of point in dissecting such similar times to try and figure out who is looking the favourite for 4th place. Just rest assured that the ‘Formula 1.5‘ championship, as it has been christened, looks like being even more closely fought than last season. And it seems they have all closed the gap to the front-runners a little, so we may see the odd podium position being stolen more often.

Image credit: Motorsport Images

That just leaves Williams, who are as off the pace as expected after their late arrival. The car has, commendably, not suffered any obvious issues and the team have amassed a fair amount of laps. But Robert Kubica admitted that he had not done a run longer than 15 laps so we will have to see how they deal with a full race distance in two weeks time. It is a real shame to see Williams just making up the numbers.

And Finally, How Quick Are the Cars in General?

This year’s regulation changes were expected to result in a drop in performance and a rise in lap times. But that hasn’t really happened. Whilst some of the lap time can be accounted for by, amongst other factors, more favourable conditions than at last year’s test, the headline time ended up just shy of a second quicker than last year’s. It would appear, as ever, that the brainboxes behind the scenes have found ways around the rules to exploit loopholes and make the air go in exactly the directions around the car they so choose. And they certainly have the potential to go much faster at this stage of development.

Overall, this season has the makings of a fantastic one. Let’s hope that’s still the case come Abu Dhabi in around 9 months time.

Let’s act like we know what’s going on in testing, pt. 1

Posted on by James Mackenzie

Every F1 publication will at this point deliver the usual caveat of pre-season testing times being unreliable, misleading and generally useless for forming opinions…and then proceed to do so anyway. In this post, I will attempt to stick to things that we can hopefully establish from this first week of 2019 F1 testing.

(And then maybe make some wild, sweeping statements and predictions at the end if I feel like it.)

McLaren’s Reliability Has Improved

I think that is fair to say. McLaren have spent the pre-season tests of the last few years in varying levels of crisis. Infamously so with Honda, completing only 425 laps in 2017 and 380 in 2015 whilst generally blowing up every time they left the garage. Fernando Alonso covered almost as many miles on foot as he did in the MP4-30. And then even with Renault last year things weren’t much better. A wheel fell off after literally 6 laps… Whilst things had then started to look more promising to the outside world, the team knew that their times were flattering to deceive and that their lofty aims of returning to the podium were not to be realised. And that maybe it hadn’t been Honda’s fault all along…

Lando Norris at 2019 F1 testing.
Image credit: DPA Picture Alliance

But this year things have been going far more smoothly. They have been quietly getting on with things – under the radar, running through programs without the need to chuck on the softest tyres and jump up higher in the timings than is representative – and have finished the week without any major dramas, solidly in the midfield when it comes to laps completed.

The team abandoned development on last year’s car early on in order to focus on this year’s and thus have far more stable foundations to build from than some of the other teams. The paddock has apparently been impressed by some of their aero ideas. Zak Brown has realistic aims of a ‘step forward’ and it’s looking like that may well have been achieved.

Alfa Romeo Have Improved Massively Since Last Year

Whilst the steady improvement of the Alfa Romeo Sauber was clear to see through last season, the difference between this and last year’s testing times is quite something.

They are very nearly five seconds better off. In cars that were supposed to be around a couple of seconds slower after these regulation changes, remember? Admittedly, the track had been resurfaced last year and conditions were far colder, hence the improvement from all teams, but the Alfa has clearly taken the biggest step. Having been scraping together pennies just a couple of years ago, the team now has enough of a budget to make one-off Valentine’s Day liveries and hire a former world champion. It will be interesting to see where they can push on to from here.

I get the impression Ferrari have somewhat shunned Haas as their little sister team in favour of Alfa Romeo and you wonder if that might have a similar adverse effect on the American team as it is a positive one on the Italians. Haas were the surprise package of 2018 and many in the paddock were suspicious of their relationship with Ferrari. But with those at Maranello now less reliant on them, will they revert to the also-rans that joined the sport in 2016?

Teams Have Gone In Different Directions With the New Front Wings

The main aim of the new regulations was to aid cars in following each other closely and to help produce better wheel-to-wheel racing. But also to potentially mix up the pack a bit. And whilst the effectiveness of the former is certainly still up for debate, the latter appears to have worked. The teams have gone with visibly different approaches.

The Mercedes front wing is the only to have its endplates angled inwards. They and Ferrari have gone in highly different directions, which is often the case, and time will tell which of them has got it right. For the moment, with Ferrari and Alfa Romeo performing very well at the first test, it is looking more likely to be their philosophy that is the way to go. If that is the case, then will Mercedes (and some of the others) concede defeat and attempt to fit a Ferrari-style wing to their car? History has often proven that just whacking on someone else’s car part isn’t very effective…

Williams Are Somewhat in Trouble

This once legendary team are struggling. They were reduced to a day and a half of shakedown drives as they tried to get to know their new car. Whilst British rookie George Russell appeared excited just to be part of it all, Robert Kubica, who has been there and done it with established teams in the past, appeared visibly frustrated already. And that coming from a man who has finally achieved his incredible goal of returning to the sport after suffering life-changing injuries eight years ago. There are rumours circulating of unrest within the team and questions being asked of Paddy Lowe – the man brought in from all-conquering Mercedes to restore the plucky British team to their once-obligatory place near the front of the grid.

I will say that the times laid down by Russell and Kubica were really not bad considering how far behind the others they started this week. I hope there is more to come from the car as it would be a real waste of a promising, young Brit (and reigning F2 champion) and a walking fairy-tale to be circulating at the back of the field, slowing down for blue flags all year.

And Finally, a couple of Wild Predictions

Because, why not?

  • The Alonso Curse to take full effect and McLaren to dominate the championship, wrapping up both titles by Hungary.
  • Max Verstappen and Pierre Gasly to get into a full-blown fistfight that gets Gasly demoted back to Toro Rosso and Daniil Kvyat reinstated to Red Bull, who then proceeds to wipe the floor with Max and reduce Helmut Marko to a quivering mess.

See you for week two!

Launch season kicks off! (Kind of…)

Posted on by James Mackenzie

So, here we go. The new season is getting tantalisingly ever closer and half the teams have now broken cover!

Except they kinda haven’t…

The launches of Haas and Williams only ever claimed to be livery launches but the others will be giving as little away as possible too. The giant, new front wings are hard to miss but beyond that, teams will be showing the world exactly the angles of the car they desire, to ensure they hide any clever loopholes or strokes of genius they’ll later be introducing. So, there’s not a huge amount to garner from these launches…but I’ll give it a quick go at summarising and at least talk about how pretty (or not, or familiar) the new liveries are.

 Rich Energy HAAS F1 Team

Haas began proceedings with the online stream of their livery launch. Their new title sponsorship with Rich Energy (a supposed energy drink that seemingly nobody has ever found a can of in real life) brought about a new colour scheme for the American team.

Whilst a not particularly subtle nod to the legendary JPS Lotus, it’s still a pretty nice black and gold number. But personally I’d have preferred a bit more of the gold and you wonder whether it may end up just looking like a less bright Renault. It has also now come to light that Rich Energy are being sued by ATB Sales – a British company that owns Whyte Bikes and their undeniably almost identical logo – so we’ll have to wait and see what the future holds for both the company and the livery…

Red Bull Toro Rosso Honda

Then came Toro Rosso with an actual car! But they decided a new car and a new livery would be a bit too much so basically Ctrl-C-Ctrl-V’d last year’s livery. In fairness, ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ definitely applies here. Since morphing to the lighter shade of blue at the start of 2017, the Toro Rosso has been one of the best-looking cars on the grid. Certainly combined with James Key’s design expertise, which has made them all very neat and well-packaged.

This is their first venture without Key since his move to McLaren but they appear to have followed the same design philosophy. The team confirmed he will not be directly replaced, mostly thanks to an even closer technical alliance with Red Bull now that they are sharing Honda engines. The rear packaging in particular appears to be bordering on size zero and will apparently be a carbon copy of that of their big brother.

ROKiT Williams Racing

There was some excitement around what livery Williams would adopt having lost Martini, and their iconic livery, at the end of 2018. The team actually bothered to rent somewhere out for their launch, which is something of a rarity these days, but the response to the new livery was…mixed, shall we say?

Less kind reviews compared it to a tube of toothpaste, a generic livery from a computer game without any official licences or a dodgy attempt at using that spray can on MS Paint. Following the classy Martini livery, whether we were all tired of it or not, was always likely to be tricky but they could probably have done better. Especially with Claire Williams stating they spent such a long time on the livery. The exposed carbon parts are quite a nice touch though. And hey, the last car looked nice but was a truck when it came to the track. If this one is an improvement on that front, I’m sure they won’t really care what people on the internet think of its appearance.

Renault F1 Team

Renault followed suit with both the Haas ‘you get a livery but not the actual car’ approach and the Toro Rosso ‘it looks pretty, let’s keep it as it is’ one. There is a little more yellow than on last year’s RS18 and it arguably accentuates the shape of the car better but that’s about it really.

The profile shots show a noticeably higher rake. Very much the Red Bull approach of recent years, who have arguably had the best chassis on the grid, so you wonder if Mr. Ricciardo knows something that we don’t… Maybe he’s pulled a Lewis-to-Mercedes and we’ll be talking about the first Australian champion since 1980 in a couple of years. Or maybe it’s just high rake. Time will tell.

Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport

Amazing what a difference a halo can make, huh? Last year’s championship-winning machine was far from an eyesore, but the big, black halo lumped on top certainly was. For whatever reason, Mercedes appeared to put less effort into incorporating the halo than the rest of the grid. Maybe they were too busy focusing on being unbeatable. Either way, this year they have addressed that with some silver paint and it makes a surprisingly big difference. Along with the usual striking splashes of Petronas aquamarine, there is the nice touch of a flock of Mercedes stars towards the back. This is a beautiful car. A true Silver Arrow.

According to James Allison, they have “worked hard on the suspension and aerodynamic characteristics to deliver a car that will be much kinder to its tyres”. That has probably been their Achilles’ heel in the last couple of years so if they succeed, it will be hard work for the rest of the field.

As much as they will undoubtedly be expanded upon in the coming weeks, it’s interesting to see the varying base approaches the teams have adopted for the new front wing regulations. And we are yet to see the supposedly ‘radical’ designs McLaren and Alfa Romeo have in store. I’m an armchair aerodynamicist at best but the main change is that these new front wings will struggle to create ‘outwash’, where air is directed outside the wheels. As has been stated by many a technical director in the past, the front wing is the first part of the car to hit the air and thus is very important. So. we could yet find that someone has had their own brilliant Brawn-double-diffuser moment come Melbourne.

Mostly, these launches have made me long for the days of the massively over the top ones of the late 90s and early 00s. Popstars, lasers, more popstars, celebrities, an Airbus… They had it all. But there are still five to go…and the Spice Girls have reunited… Pretty sure there’s someone in the paddock with a connection there…