2020 Pre-Season Testing

[Chrill]

Alright, we've started!

At lunchtime, all teams have already clocked decent laptimes. For example:

George Russell, 1m18.168s. In 2019, on the final day of pre-season testing, Kubica set the fastest Williams laptime of the pre-season, with a 1m18.99s. In the qualifying to the Spanish Grand Prix, Russell set a 1m19.072s.

So, in other words, the Williams car is an improvement regardless of tyres and track temperature. You don't run a full second faster on day one unless the car is improved.

That's all we can deduct from the first few hours. All teams run fairly smoothly, not a lot of stoppages.

[Penfold]

Good for Williams to have a finished car to test!  I'm not expecting anything tremendous from them this year; perhaps competitive backmarker is the limit of my optimism.

Mercedes Racing Point & BorisJohnson appear to have hit the ground running, they could be a real headache for the McLaren & Renault boys and their in-house designed cars.

[Chrill]

Today's talk of the town is the fact that Mercedes drivers can adjust the toe-in/toe-out of their front wheels by literally pulling on the wheel. That gives a minor aerodynamic advantage on the straights, but more importantly it evens out the heat distribution and the wear of the tyres on straights. Should enable them to run more aggressively without losing grip.

Also, Mercedes apparently has a clever rear suspension. Very innovative, this car. Go hard or go home, I suppose.

[Chrill]

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.tech-insight-have-mercedes-just-changed-the-game-with-new-steering-wheel.78KDOPX7xRy9YtaFZPCKC4.html

A decent video explaining the blown diffuser/mass dampers/F-duct of 2020, DAS. Was ist DAS, you may ask? Dual Axis Steering.

[Penfold]

An ingenious device.  I fully expect it to be banned from 2021....

[Penfold]

Turns out next year's regs do prohibit a device such as DAS - the FIA probably tweaked the rules as soon as Merc came to them to check said system's legality!

Talking of Mercedes: Valerie put in a 1'15.732 this morning, some half a second faster than they managed in pre-season last year.

[Chrill]

After the first 3 days of testing, I'd like to rate the teams:

1. Mercedes
2. Red Bull
3. Renault
4. Ferrari
5. Racing Point
6. Alfa Romeo
7. AlphaTauri
8. McLaren
9. Williams
10. Haas

Obviously, 2-10 is basically randomised right now. The midfield looks as tight as ever, but it seems Ferrari could struggle to pull clear of it. Sure, they haven't gone for laptimes as of yet but their engine has broken down after 3 days of testing and it has to last SEVEN weekends this year.

[Penfold]

I'll go with:

1. Mercedes
2. Red Bull
3. Ferrari
4. McLaren
5. Racing Point
6. Renault
7. Alfauber
8. BorisJohnson
9. Williams
10. Haas

Like you say, it looks incredibly tight in the midfield and so positions four to eight are based off hunches as much as anything.

[Chrill]

So we basically agree that Williams and Haas will battle it out for best in Q1, that Mercedes will win it and that their closest rival is Red Bull. The rest is, as they say, all to play for.

[Chrill]

Let's rate em again. Testing is over. Half the season could be as well, lots of coronas around the world.

1. Mercedes
2. Red Bull
3. Renault
4. Racing Point
5. Ferrari (yup)
6. McLaren
7. AlphaTauri
8. Williams
9. Alfa Romeo
10. Haas

[Penfold]

I'll give mine a few tweaks....

1. Mercedes
2. Red Bull
3. Ferrari - but not a really close third.
4. McLaren
5. Renault
6. Tracing Point
7. BorisJohnson - places 4 to 7 look v. close but I think McLaren & Renault just edging it.
8. Alfauber
9. Williams
10. Haas

About that McLaren p4: Chap on racefans observed that they didn't push it on the softer compounds; their best time of pre-season, a 1'16.820, was done on a set of C4s, but it was only two thousandths quicker than their best C3 effort.  As far as I can tell, everyone else besides the C4-shod Renault used C5s for their fastest runs.