Ferrari, has reportedly stepped up their game from last year's form and will be aiming for no less than the title, Mercedes is not yet ready to drop from their 2014-2015 form, Williams ready to chase Ferrari for runner up spot, Red Bull to drop performance in the first part of the season due to their new power unit, Toro Rosso set to beat their older brother, McLaren to make progress but repeat some of their 2015 struggles, Renault to struggle in their first year, Manor to make progress with new Mercedes engine, etc, etc, etc. Those have been the sort of headlines and comments we've been reading and hearing all over the off season, such claims, rumors and reports set the stage for what could be, in my opinion, a great season of racing.
However, it's already late February, the first preseason test has ended and now is the time when the bullshit stops, when the rumors start be proven right or wrong and the time when we start to see each team's performance, while some teams choose to go the distance to test their endurance and reliability, some others choose to test their new power units or aerodynamic parts, while a few other choose to just push to see how quick they can be compared to the competition. The last part being a quite important one this time around, due to the introduction of Pirelli's Ultra Soft compound, which could bring the lap times a few seconds down and could suit some teams better than other ones.
First things first, let's talk numbers...
Most Laps completed by Driver, Team and Engine.
Test Timesheets.
Day One
Day Two
Combined times from all four days
Now, onto the important part of this post, each team's aspirations in 2016, judging by their performance.
A small clarification, more often than not, testing doesn't reflect the way a season turns out, but it's always an useful tool to measure a team's weaknesses, strenghts, limitations, advantages and possibilities in the season.
Mercedes
By the look of things, it looks like the actual world champions are resuming their usual kind of business.
It is obvious that their aspirations and aims are no other than staying at the top in the dominating fashion they've done in the last two years.
Don't let the time sheets fool you, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton might've ended the test in 8th and 12th, respectively, in the combined times, but it's very probable that their focus in this test was to try out the endurance and reliability of their new power unit. Which has proved successful, with both drivers getting past the 150 lap mark on both of the first days, accumulating a total of 675 laps, 228 more than the second team in this aspect, Toro Rosso, who could only complete a total of 447.
Also, both Nico and Lewis made their fastest laps while using the medium and soft compound, respectively, whilst most of the car's who were faster than them were on either super softs or ultra softs, this explains their disadvantages in the lap times. But Nico Rosberg being the fastest driver on mediums and faster than Hamilton, who was on softs, really makes you wonder if the German is planning on carrying on the winning form with which he finished last season. Makes me think maybe this time we could see a more balanced match up between both Merc drivers.
My conclusion on their aspirations? It's easy, if no clear competitors (insert Ferrari here) are up to the challenge, the Silver Arrows won't even need to break a sweat.
Ferrari
As it's been mentioned now and then, the hottest topic of the off season, was the Scuderia's possibilities at challenging Mercedes for the title.
Most of the team members are confident that their new SF16-H is good enough to guide them to the title, they claim that they are aware that it won't be easy and that their rivals were obviously not sleeping but that the team's main objectives involve no lesser achievement than the world titles.
As team president Sergio Marchionne said, it'd be a catastrophe to see the team not winning a title in 10 years. They're clearly not ready and not willing to witness this scenario.
They might've been the 6th team in terms of number of completed laps, but I guess that's the smallest of your worries when you topped the time sheets in 3 out of 4 days and when you secure the first and second spots in the combined times.
According to both Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen, the car is a step up from last year's.
Another important thing to look at, is how well the new ultra soft types have suit them, helping them to top the time sheets on days two and four and to lock up two spots in the top 3.
We are still yet to see how this new compound suits their main competitors, but as of now, when Vettel and Hamilton both went out in mediums, it was the German who had the upper hand by no less than .470 seconds, not to mention that they were never behind the Merc cars in the time sheets.
In conclusion, I think we'll have to wait for next week's test to start comparing both team's performances in terms of pace, but it's no doubt that things look bright for the Italian squad.
They have arguably the best drivers lineup in the whole grid and what could be the second fastest car on the grid. Serious title contenders, much more higher aspirations than those of last year (3 wins).
Williams
They were the most quiet teams during the offseason, very few news came out of their headquarters, with the exception of the team's passing of th crash tests and their first successful firing up of the car.
Their car showed no differences compared to last year's and even the launch of their car was reduced to just the releasing of a couple pictures on social media and was eventually opaque by Ferrari's launch, that happened on the same day. However it is believable that the team decided to dump their media presence for more work in the factory, with the aims of getting the second place in the constructors championship that Ferrari took over in 2015.
They were one of the surprises in 2014, getting their first pole and first podium since 2012 and getting a total of 9 podiums throughout the season to claim 3rd in the championship. The expectations in 2015 were high and they were one of the most affected by Ferrari's 2014-2015 evolution. They were forced to stay in the third position with no more than 4 podiums, when they were expecting to challenge for the title.
Now, the expectations from the fans are a bit lower, given Ferrari's possibilities to fight for the title, but the Grove-based team seems to be aiming to pursue that runner up spot which could've been theirs last year.
As I mentioned, they were pretty quiet during the winter, and this test would not be the exception. They completed a total of 377 laps to be the fourth team in this aspect but what's very interesting and to some extent disappointing is their pace, Felipe Massa couldn't get out of the bottom 3, not even with the softer compound, and he was only ahead of Jenson Button and Indonesian rookie Rio Haryanto. Meanwhile, Valtteri Bottas found himself less than a second ahead of his teammates in the combined times in 14th place.
If the team is to fulfill their objectives, they must come up and show something speed-wise come next week test, otherwise, they'll be facing Vettel's and Raikkonen's rear wing for another year.
Red Bull
Team boss Christian Horner already explained that this will be a season of transition for the team, big changes happened in the offseason, with the Tag-Heuer branding of their power units and the dropping of main sponsor Infiniti being the most important ones, leaving aside the massive change in the car's appearance, with a beautiful matte dark blue design with bigger team logos.
As well as Williams, they were affected by the way in which Ferrari quickly evolved from that terrible 2014. But they had more problems than a couple of red cars, and those problems were, at least according to the team, due to the low power their Renault engines delivered. This almost led them to dropping out of the sport due to a lack of substitutes for Renault as their enginee provider.
Fortunately for the sport, they decided to continue with Renault and stayed in the series.
Fast forward to 2016, Horner himself has calmly and frankly said that the team's best performance is to be seen in the second part of the season, since they will be adapting to the new car, new tyres, and relatively new power unit. He even admitted that probably Toro Rosso could end up being quicker than them.
Their performance in this first test is very promising, not only they managed to be faster than their smaller brother but they found themselves in the top 3 in 3 out of the 4 days, with Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyät occupying the fourth and sixth places in the combined times, respectively, being faster than close competitors Williams and slightly slower than rivals Force India, proving that the ultra softs suit them well too.
Reliability from the Renault power units isn't an area of concern since they completed a decent amount of laps in the test, being the fifth best team in that department.
We shall wait until next week for the rest of the teams to show their true pace to see if this good results in the first test for Red Bull can guarantee some success during the season.
Force India
Exactly one year ago, this team found themselves in a pretty bad situation, having not yet acquired any mileage in their new car and practically using the first couple of races in the season as a test to see their own performance. However, they knew how to turn this around, they evolved during the season and made changes along the route, which helped them secure their best season since entering Formula One, securing 5th place in the constructors championship and with their Mexican ace Sergio Perez having the best season of his career, finishing in 10th, the highlight of the season being an unexpected podium finish in Russia after defending third place almost until the very end, being unable to hold off Bottas and Räikkönen but being luck-struck in the last lap when both Finns collided.
On into 2016 and after a failed association with Aston Martin, the team presented their car on the morning of February 21st, no changes in the livery and little changes in aerodynamics. They had basically created a new car, based on the B-spec which brought them success in the second part of 2015, a bold move which, judging by the test results, has paid off so far.
Nico Hulkenberg topped the time sheets on day three ahead of Sebastian Vettel and was second in the combined times, just behind his fellow German by 0.3 seconds, Sergio Perez secured third in day two and fifth in the combined times and Mexican Alfonso Celis had a good debut in F1, being seventh overall ahead of big names in the category.
They were another of the few teams to try out the ultra softs, which were helpful for them to put up the times that they put.
The team has a good pairing in Perez and Hulkenberg, the perfect combination of youth and talent and has made the right choice of basing their 2016 car in their successful 2015 chassis.
I believe that there's still a long road to go, but by the look of things, this team can go on to pass Red Bull in the standings this year, and not only that but they could also be fighting for podiums more often, and maybe this'll be the year in which we finally see Nico getting the podium finished he so much deserves, or Checo getting the win he's fought so hard for.
Renault
The comeback of the French team was one of the loudest news, late in 2015, the first time the French car manufacturers has had an F1 works team since 2010.
The team is the one which has undergone the most changes in the winter: a whole rebranding, completely new drivers lineup, new engine provider, new team staff and obviously, new colors and new livery.
The team has said that they're here to win, not just to make up numbers and that they're expecting to have an evolution such as Mercedes' but that not much should be expected from the in their first year, since they'll be practically like a whole new team, using a whole new power unit and a whole new car.
Whilst 2014 GP2 champion, British rookie Jolyon Palmer struggled and got a best result of tenth in day one and a final result of 19th in combined times, it was Kevin Magnussen the responsible for kicking in the team's best results of the test, being 10th overall and 4th in days three and four.
According to reports, it was particularly a frustrating first test for Palmer, as he suffered reliability issues which cut their running short to less than 80 laps (only a bit more than race distance) in the first two days.
Magnussen had it a lot easier, passing the 110 lap mark in his two days at the car, and passing the 150 lap mark on day three.
Still, the team was the 7th best in terms of completed laps with 343 laps to their name.
The team's doing good, but it may only need a few adjustments on their engine's endurance.
I expect them to be successful in fighting the other back markers in their debut season and they may even get some point finishes.
Toro Rosso
The team made a bold move for 2015 by getting rid of Jean-Eric Vergne to bring in Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, however the move proved to be a good one, as they'd found a pair of talented young drivers.
While Carlos struggled with mechanical issues, Max quickly acquired popularity for his risky overtakes and his moves on the limit and he was successful in his first season, claiming two brilliant fourth place finishes.
Now, the team has a big quantity of eyes on them, since Red Bull's team boss tipped them off to be faster than Red Bull and it'll be up to these two youngsters to prove their value this year.
A good first step is vital in this part of the season and while they weren't among the fastest and not even faster than Red Bull, they used this test to put to test the reliability of the Ferrari power unit, which helped them to be the second team with the most laps in the test, with 447.
We will have to wait until the next test in March 1st to have more indicating data on their pace and how could they do compared to others.
Sauber
The Swiss team's 2015 season was miles away from what they were able to do only two year before that year (2012), they were the eighth team in the championship only ahead of back markers McLaren and Manor.
But the roots of their current issues date back to the 2014 season and the beginning of 2015.
In 2014 they had their worst season in history, failing to score any single point and finishing the season only ahead of Caterham in the constructors championship.
In early 2015, they were involved in serious legal issues due to having hired not two drivers, but four of them, according to the people involved. 2015 official drivers Felipe Nasr and Marcus Ericsson were two of those drivers, with the other ones being their former test driver Giedo van der Garde, who claimed to having a contract to race with the team in 2015, and their driver in 2014 Adrian Sutil, who had similar claims to those of the Dutchman.
In the end, the situation got settled, but the inconveniences of those issues prompted a difficult start to the season.
However, the Swiss team made good use of the funds brought in by Swedish driver Marcus Ericsson and of 2014 GP2 runner up Felipe Nasr's talent and were able to score 36 points, a lot better than the disappointment of 2014, but still far away from where they'd wish to be.
They had a pretty problematic start to the year in 2016 as well, with the team announcing they their new car wouldn't be ready for the first test but for the second one, obviously harming their chances at developing the new car to improve it.
Now, things are looking A-Okay for the team, they might be running with their 2015 car, but it's seems like the parts they tested in Catalunya proved to be an improvement, with Ericsson being ninth in the combined times ahead of drivers like Lewis Hamilton, Max Verstappen and Valtteri Bottas, only 2.4 seconds from the lead.
Even if Brazilian Nasr wasn't as high in the time sheets, he was the one who completed the most laps for the team, and put together with the laps completed by Ericsson, they made up for the third team with the most laps completed in the test, with 432.
The team has shown a good pace among the mid fielders and has found a good reliable power unit in the one provided by Ferrari, now it's a matter of time to see if the team's new C35 can help them climb up the standings in the new season, this we'll find out in next week's test.
McLaren
The opening season of the new McLaren-Honda era started the wrong way, it was catastrophic. They managed to score 27 points in the season (somehow), but still, most of the things that could've gone wrong, went wrong. Terrible reliability of the Honda power unit not only caused retirements from races because of engine blow ups, but also massive grid penalties produced by engine blow ups during qualifying, which caused them to change the engine. Needless to say that they exceeded the limitation on engines to be used in the season by a noticeable margin.
Not only the power unit was unreliable but also incredibly underperforming and slower compared to the rest of the field.
Their problem was that Honda expected too much from the season, they expected to see their project prepared in a bit more than a year look like it had been prepared for more than three years, and it's just doesn't work like that, the first season with a new engine always has some bumps on the road but McLaren had more than they expected.
But the shitstorm doesn't stop in 2015, early in 2016, they suffered unreliability in one of the three testing days in Paul Ricard and also in this test in Barcelona. They clearly made a step up from 2015, that we have to admit, completing a total of 257 laps. But the effort was useless since they were only 3 laps ahead of Manor, as the second worst team in laps completed.
The first half of test went good for them, completing 203 laps in the first two days but it all went downhill in the remaining two days, with Jenson Button completing 51 laps in day three and with a very very disappointing end to the test on day four, as Fernando Alonso was unable to complete more than three laps. He took less time in getting out of the McLaren garage than he took in getting back in it.
The lap times were also pretty bad, as the team locked up two spots in the bottom six of the combined times.
If the team improves for next week's test, we are set to see a good McLaren-Manor battle in the season, if they don't, my guess is that Honda is going to be having to pack their things.
Manor
A new power unit, an all new drivers lineup... This was another of the teams which underwent the most changes in the winter, changing the official team name to Manor Racing, getting a new power unit from Mercedes and hiring promising Merc prospect Pascal Wehrlein.
With a reliable and good power unit such as Mercedes' and a talented guy such as Wehrlein, the possibilities are promising.
In the end, they couldn't match the expectations. They were unable to complete more than 80 laps in any of the days, and completed a total of 253 laps in the whole test, the lowest number for any team, less than a race distance.
A good spot on the combined times could've been a good consolation prize for the poor reliability but it didn't happen, 16th for Wehrlein and 23rd (and last) for Haryanto was the best that they could achieve.
As I pointed out before, it's very probable to see McLaren and Manor fighting for the last spots.
Haas F1
The American team's entrance into the championship has been talked about since the late part of the 2014 season, and as well in this off season.
They have installed a good set of facilities for F1 purposes and they've gotten one of the best power units in the grid with Ferrari's, not too mention the good driver pairing they've put together, with 2015 podium finisher Romain Grosjean, who has developed as more as a driver in his last three years at Lotus, and returning Esteban Gutierrez, who has made good use of his year as Ferrari's test driver to further improve his skills.
A survey carried out on Twitter, revealed that at least 40% of the participants think that the team will go on to score more than 30 points, high expectations for the newcomers.
However I beg to differ, like I said, the first season is always really bumpy and probably not as easy much expect it to be. But the team does have potential to evolve during the season.
This is proved by the time sheets, which put the team in the place where it should be, ahead of the back markers but a few tenths behind some mid fielders, despite this fact, Romain Grosjean was able to get into the top three on day three.
Their number of laps completed isn't anything to brag about either, as they failed to complete a race distance in the test, with only 281 laps, but it's just another symptom of the new-team disorder.
We shall see more of their potential in next week's test and during the season.
Next week's test, starting in March 1st, will give us a more clear idea of how the season will pan out. Until then!
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