nudge

Yeah, Mclaren have been experiencing problems since the start of the testing last week; first wheel nut failure and broken exhaust, then overheating resulting in burn marks on the engine cover, now battery fail/electric shutdown and lost data. Can't blame Honda this time though

Have fun, haha... I worked until late last night to finish all my urgent projects, so just got up a while ago. Ordered a pizza, will lay in bed and watch football/movies and drink beer the whole day.

You know you're having a great Friday when you're casually approached by a Jehovah's Witness sitting next to your table at a restaurant while you are waiting for your food, and have to learn about the imminent Armageddon, the Second Coming of Christ and the cleansing of the Earth. Just wanted to give you the all a heads up too

I actually don't have anything against Sirotkin, he's not the first and surely not the last pay-driver, he wanted to get into F1 and did all he had to - but he should be prepared to deal with the consequences of what he correctly described as "every man for himself" if things don't go his way from the very start.

It's funny how I heard completely opposite about Williams testing; from what I've heard, apparently Sirotkin had better single lap times while Kubica was stronger on long runs I actually believe that both performed at a very similar level, so in the end, Williams chose the one with more sponsorship money - once again, definitely a speculation since we're in no position to know any of the actual details, but most of the sources I read have mentioned 8-12 million Euro as Kubica's sponsorship budget, while Sirotkin's team offered almost twice as much. Whether it's true or not, the team was always going to waffle about choosing the best driver based on ability and what not either way, so I guess we'll only see how he does when the time comes.

Not to mention that they basically screwed Kubica over by choosing Sirotkin over him because money, despite having allegedly agreed on contract terms already. Williams has become a huge joke, a billionaires playground for their kids. Oh and Martini is leaving them too. Anyway, not feeling sorry for Sirotkin either, just a while ago he gave an interview where he said something along the lines that "it's every man for himself in F1, and Kubica knows this", so he should surely be alright with this.

To be honest, I wouldn't want to go back to being a student and have to do assignments, submit papers, etc.

Yes yes, the hard life of a student...

Bring beer and Brötchen, thanks

+32 during the day, +24 at night, light breeze, about 70-80% humidity Best weather of the year at the moment, but the rainy season is slowly approaching...

GP Predictor is cool.

Also, how many races before Massa comes back from retirement again.

customer teams, the ones that get their engines from engine suppliers instead of developing their own. RB is technically a customer team too, as they use Renault as a supplier. Mercedes, Ferrari, Renault - factory, or "works" teams. The rest are customer teams.

So maybe: Top 10 (maybe scoring system like 3 points for every correct position, 1 for the driver being in the top 10?) Pole Position Fastest Lap Fastest Customer (or customer with highest finish?) How many laps before Alonso retires from the race ?

Even a meter of snow couldn't possibly hide that monstrosity

It's official - F1 are launching F1TV, their official live streaming service!!! Absolutely great and very affordable pricing too!

Snow in Barcelona... Times and laps of Day Two so far:

Are we planning to run any sort of F1 predictions/fantasy game for the new season? @Tommy @Cannabis @Stan @RandoEFC @Storts

yeah, they only had a short live feed (for like 15 minutes) on their Facebook site... I watched live streams on Periscope every once in a while, but obviously not much to see as it's filmed from one turn only, but at least could catch some glimpses

I like the idea of painting the car orange as it's still iconic for Mclaren, even if we haven't seen it recently. This one was a beauty: But I don't like what they made of the livery in general, so I'm not a fan either... Agreed with the rest, too. Sauber is still the best looking car for me, followed by Ferrari (halo looks the least horrible on it, in my opinion) and Renault.

Looks like it, yes Alonso managed quite a few laps after getting back on track too though, so it's likely that it was just a wheel bolt/nut defect on his Mclaren... hopefully for them, anyway. Renault with 99 laps but relatively lower top speeds; makes sense after their announcement that they'll be focusing on reliability at the start of the season and will look to improve performance later on. Oh well, it's only the first day of testing anyway, the priority for the teams is surely just gathering data at this point. Hopefully the weather conditions will improve for tomorrow, there were even talks of testing being extended to Friday.

End of Day 1 Testing.

Force India's Russian development driver, apparently. I only know him from the incident in Formula 3 where he got banned from the race for beating another driver in the paddocks Morning session is over, Ricciardo with the fastest time so far!

Testing times so far:

Red flag again after Force India gets stuck in gravel in T4.