[SchumiFan]

Pirelli tests have been concluded, Alonso keeps Ferrari on top for the second successive day. But look who is behind, its Michael. I know it is not going to be of any significance but it is nice to see him close to the top in a car he struggled throughout the year. Red-Bull are third with Vettel. Massa set the fastest time of the tests: 1m40.170s

Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m40.529s 105
2. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m40.685s 74
3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1m40.825s 66
4. Rubens Barrichello Williams 1m41.294s 100
5. Robert Kubica Renault 1m41.614s 91
6. Gary Paffett McLaren 1m41.622s 46
7. Oliver Turvey McLaren 1m41.740s 30
8. Paul di Resta Force India 1m41.869s 35
9. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber 1m42.110s 43
10. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso 1m42.145s 97
11. Tonio Liuzzi Force India 1m42.416s 46
12. Sergio Perez Sauber 1m42.777s 46
13. Jarno Trulli Lotus 1m44.521s 83
14. Pastor Maldonado Hispania 1m44.768s 65
15. Timo Glock Virgin 1m44.783s 82

[PAVAN KADAM]

Originally Posted by SchumiFan

Pirelli tests have been concluded, Alonso keeps Ferrari on top for the second successive day. But look who is behind, its Michael. I know it is not going to be of any significance but it is nice to see him close to the top in a car he struggled throughout the year. Red-Bull are third with Vettel. Massa set the fastest time of the tests: 1m40.170s

Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1m40.529s 105
2. Michael Schumacher Mercedes 1m40.685s 74
3. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull 1m40.825s 66
4. Rubens Barrichello Williams 1m41.294s 100
5. Robert Kubica Renault 1m41.614s 91
6. Gary Paffett McLaren 1m41.622s 46
7. Oliver Turvey McLaren 1m41.740s 30
8. Paul di Resta Force India 1m41.869s 35
9. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber 1m42.110s 43
10. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso 1m42.145s 97
11. Tonio Liuzzi Force India 1m42.416s 46
12. Sergio Perez Sauber 1m42.777s 46
13. Jarno Trulli Lotus 1m44.521s 83
14. Pastor Maldonado Hispania 1m44.768s 65
15. Timo Glock Virgin 1m44.783s 82

These are with New tires and old car.

So that means, Redbulls, Mercedes GP and Ferrari's (old Cars) have taken a liking for the Pirelli rubbers

[McLaren Rulez]

Originally Posted by anachronix

To start with some news on 2011, Mclaren is planning to bring back the Red & White colours of Senna days! Would look really nice IMO

Do you have a source for that? I thought the red and white was a Marlboro thing and if McLaren did want to change, they'd go back to the historic orange

[Newpunter]

Schumi was actually 7th. His fastest time was disallowed later because he cut the chicane unintentionally during that lap. So we have to wait for some more time to see if the tyres are suited to him or not. He did say he was happy with them so far :

"They have a very different combination," he said when asked by AUTOSPORT if the Pirellis seemed more suited to his style.

"Whether [or not] you can say the front tyre is now stronger and that's going to suit my style, what is very important is how next year's car is going to suit these tyres. That's very important.

"But for the first step, from what we have seen here, I feel positive about the tyres."

He underlined that the adaptation to the new tyres was still at a very early stage and that fine-tuning was required on both sides.

"I was quite happy with the first test. A lot of positive feedback so we can now start to do the detailed work on the car," said Schumacher.

"The tyres performed reasonably consistently and were good. I'm sure they're making some small adjustments for the future, but all in all I'm quite happy."

[im_srini]

Originally Posted by Newpunter

Schumi was actually 7th. His fastest time was disallowed later because he cut the chicane unintentionally during that lap.

True, Schumi's fastest time is listed as 1:41.757. Almost all of the drivers are slower on Pirelli rubber, Massa's the only one who's improved on his qualifying time (set with Bridgestone). He also appears to be the fastest so far with Pirelli.



Too bad we don't have the Pirelli times for Lewis & Jenson.

[nitrous]

These timings mean nothing to us and mean everything to Pirelli.
The development in the cars would make these runs irrelevant for 2011 which is what matters.
These runs are purely to get finished with the development and finalize on the Pirelli compounds for next season.

[KRf1]

I agree with Nitrous .The Pirelli test are as good as useless to gauge anything about 2011 . Next Years cars will have KERS , adjustable rear wings etc .

Force India should hire Nico Hulkenberg and Paul di Resta for next year. They would certainly up the game from the current set of drivers . Liuzzi in particular was quite underperforming this year .

Sergio Perez is set for Sauber and Pastor Maldonado for Williams I think .

[sujaylahiri]

Originally Posted by MaserQ

2011 is going to be a big year for Karun Chandhok. He needs 1 full season to show off his skills. Force India would be his best bet, but even a seat in a lesser team would not be that bad.

It would be a pity if he loses out on a seat for want of enough sponsor backing. Corporate India has to wake up to the potential of Formula 1 in India once the Indian GP comes calling.

F1 is also a global advertisement billboard for Indian corporates to showcase themselves. Somehow, Karun Chandhok and Force India to a lesser extent have not been able to attract enough big name sponsors.

The Indian GP will need an ambassador for its inaugural year. The names Schumacher and Chandhok spring to mind...

I am almost a 100% certain that Karun Chandhok will have a race seat next year, at least for the latter half of the season just in time for the Indian GP race. With the way Bernie works, hosting an Indian GP without an Indian racing driver will be very detrimental for his business and the future of F1 in India .

[PAVAN KADAM]

Originally Posted by KRf1

Force India should hire Nico Hulkenberg and Paul di Resta for next year. They would certainly up the game from the current set of drivers . Liuzzi in particular was quite underperforming this year .

You stole my words

Originally Posted by sujaylahiri

I am almost a 100% certain that Karun Chandhok will have a race seat next year, at least for the latter half of the season just in time for the Indian GP race. With the way Bernie works, hosting an Indian GP without an Indian racing driver will be very detrimental for his business and the future of F1 in India .

Not really sure,how it works, but i feel Sutil is good, we need another driver like Hulkenberg or, if Kimi comes back, why not Force India

Just a thought.

[Newpunter]

Originally Posted by sujaylahiri

I am almost a 100% certain that Karun Chandhok will have a race seat next year, at least for the latter half of the season just in time for the Indian GP race. With the way Bernie works, hosting an Indian GP without an Indian racing driver will be very detrimental for his business and the future of F1 in India .

Well, we have a Chinese GP with no Chinese driver, Malaysian GP with no Malaysian driver, Korean GP with no Korean Driver, Bahrain GP, Abu Dhabi GP with no middle east driver etc. I don't see any reason why Indian GP should be any different. I would like to see an Indian driver in F1 based on merit , not just because he is indian. And to be honest, In my opinion , Karun doesn't deserve to be in F1.

The only unconfirmed seats so far are at Force India , Renault ( one ), HRT ( one ) and probably Virgin.

I think the main factor will be the 2nd Renault seat. If they retain Petrov, then Sutil will stay at Force India and probably Paul Di Resta will replace Luizzi. If Sutil moves to Renault, FI would probably retain Luizzi for continuity , alongwith Di Resta. HRT has said they will have Pedro De La Rosa in one of their seats, but I don't think they will even be on the grid next year.
HRT had an agreement with Toyota for next year's car, but Toyota has terminated that agreement due to non payment, so they don't have any car as of now.

[ashok_lat]

I would like to see Armaan Ebrahim in Force India by 2011 or at-least by 2012 season. I think he will fulfill the dreams of Mr. Mallya of making an Indian Hamilton by 2014. Armaan should have been given a place by 2011 at-least as a test driver in Force India. Naren Karthikeyan once said that Arman will be india's next big talent. Hope that comes true.

[anachronix]

Originally Posted by McLaren Rulez

Do you have a source for that? I thought the red and white was a Marlboro thing and if McLaren did want to change, they'd go back to the historic orange

That information was revealed as paint scheme for next year is under 'discussion' by one of the Mclaren folks who is a member in AtlasF1. Apart from that I dont have any concrete information regarding the paint scheme of the 2011 Mclaren.

[Newpunter]

Originally Posted by ashok_lat

I would like to see Armaan Ebrahim in Force India by 2011 or at-least by 2012 season. I think he will fulfill the dreams of Mr. Mallya of making an Indian Hamilton by 2014. Armaan should have been given a place by 2011 at-least as a test driver in Force India. Naren Karthikeyan once said that Arman will be india's next big talent. Hope that comes true.

I agree. Armaan is a very promising talent. I hope he can prove himself in GP2 or F2 and get noticed by the F1 bosses. He certainly has the pace, but needs to improve his consistency and reduce mistakes.

[mgh]

Highly unlikely that drivers will change at Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren and Mercedes.
As far as Sutil is concerned, my feeling is that if he can get into Renault he will do so, otherwise he will stay put.

Red Bull won the constructor's title, so their drivers should have been 1 and 2. Webber lost points at Abu Dhabi because RB intentionally or otherwise screwed him. So in both their drivers utilised the potential of the car.
Similarly, both McLaren drivers utilised their car.
In case of Ferrari, they should have been 5 and six. So Massa did Ok. But Alonso finishing second, indicates that there was a strong contrribution from the driver. No wonder, the drivers themselves consider him to be the best driver on the circuit today.
In case of Mercedes, Rosberg did the expected, Schumi was slightly back, probably due to rustiness.
In case of Renault, Kubica's contribution was strong.
In the case of Williams' Barrichello's experience showed.
In case of Force India, Sutil got more out of the car than indicated by FIs position. Latter part of the season, as Mallya admitted, they were concentrating more on the 2011 car, else they and Sutil would have done better.

[anachronix]

From James Allen's Blog

The rebirth of Pirelli as a tyre supplier began today with the first test in Abu Dhabi.

In total there were 13 drivers on track today, with Force India giving both Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta a run.

The fastest time was set by Felipe Massa in 1m 40.170, which was a shade faster than he managed in qualifying for last week’s Grand Prix. But of course that does not tell the whole story.

First there has been a significant amount of track improvement since last week, with lap times in the Young Guns test around 1.3 seconds faster than at the Grand Prix. To complicate the picture further, there is the chemical reaction which takes place when one manufacturers’ rubber mixes on the surface with another. This takes some time to work through.

My research from talking to a number of senior engineers this afternoon is that the Pirelli tyres are around two seconds per lap off the pace of the Bridgestones, which bowed out last week. The engineers will get a clearer idea tomorrow in the second and final day. Today was mostly about set up, finding ride heights and camber angles. Tomorrow we may see more performance runs.

Jaime Alguersuari had the honour of turning the first lap for a current F1 car on Pirellis this morning on a hot track surface. Engineers noted several things straight away. The camber they need to run with these tyres is different and inevitably there will some changes to suspension geometry required in designs for next year’s cars, which is to be expected.
Many reported that the front tyres were more positive in braking and turn in than this year’s Bridgestoneswhich is likely to be good news for drivers like Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa who struggled with that this year. I imagine both of them are feeling quite relieved tonight, although Schumacher has yet to try them as it was Rosberg’s turn today. Rosberg wasn’t as positive about the tyres as others, telling Autosport that he felt the tyres were “weaker” than the Bridgestones.

But Massa had a very different feeling. “I felt at ease from the start,” said Massa. “And there were no unpleasant surprises.” Massa added that the medium tyre needs work on the long runs, while the soft was quick on the first lap and had quite good durability.

Pirelli have already said that the tyre construction will not change for next year, it is already pretty much locked in. The company plans to do a lot more work on the compounds, however, on stiffness and on working range.

The only negative was a rear tyre failure on world champion Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull car right at the end. Pirelli will be hoping that there is no repeat of that tomorrow.

But the overall view is that they have the construction right and that is the main thing. The tyres are almost ready to go now, which is a fantastic achievement by Pirelli engineers after an absence of almost two decades from the sport. They have a three year contract as sole supplier to F1. There are some significant aerodynamic effects from the tyres as they are a different shape from the Bridgestones, this will be the focus of a lot of wind tunnel and CFD work over the coming months.

The tyres seemed to warm up pretty quickly, which is not surprising given the heat of Abu Dhabi, so we don’t know yet what it will be like in Spain in February. Nor is it clear what the graining will be like on a green track. These things will be discovered when 2011 testing starts in earnest. The soft tyre was faster than the medium, which engineers found a positive discovery as that wasn’t always the case for Bridgestone – just ask Nico Rosberg about the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. There will be two other tyres in the range of four, which the teams will race with next season.

Interestingly when I spoke to Jenson Button about his reasons for not testing the new tyres this week, he said that the McLaren engineers had advised both him and Lewis Hamilton that it would be a waste of their time as the tyres were expected to change beyond recognition over the winter. That is not the impression I’m getting tonight from the teams. They feel that they have a good handle on the tyre now and that the changes will not be on a major scale.

“Whilst a lot of details remain to be understood, we feel that we have gained an initial understanding of the operational requirements of the two compounds that we have and have highlighted some important areas for investigation and improvement,” said Mercedes boss Ross Brawn. ” We have been lucky to have been able to get exposure to the Pirelli tyres at a track with which we are now very familiar and in conditions that we will not experience again until the final test of the season in Bahrain. Michael watched today’s proceedings with great interest and is looking forward to experiencing the tyres for himself tomorrow.”

I still dont understand why Mclaren kept their drivers away from this test! It would have given them a good reference point to compare performance of the Bridgestone Vs Pirelli. Wierd!