Well it's a little difficult to tell so far, as it's testing, fuel loads, tryes etc...too many variables, but as the third winter test is now finished, I'm going to put my neck out and predict whereI believe teams to be.
Generally the Red Bull's, last years champions, look good again, overal the strongest package. Slightly stronger than Ferrari i'd say, but not a significant amount, Renault has looked strong, but now they've lost Kubica could struggle, they're replaced him with Heidfield but he doesn't have the out and out pace Kubica brings, but does have the knowledge and know how to devolpe the car, expect Mercedes and Williams to pick up the odd podium, The big question mark for me is on the McLaren, not really done much mileage as there car keeps breaking, so they're still working on set-up and fine tuning, but expect McLaren not to have built a dog, and a car that'll be near the pace come austrilia. Force Indina seem to have lost abit of ground, although Di Resta is looking good, should give Sutil a run for his money, and of the teams formally known as "the new teams", not that we've seen the new hispania car but Lotus looks quickest again, and they appear to be closer to the space, possibly on the same sort of pace of the Torro Roso, Sauber and Force India.
The Pirellis are fasinating too, so far unmarked so it's impossible to tell who's on what compound (Super Soft, Soft, Medium or Hard), but from looking at lap times on the longer runs I can make an educated guess who's on what.
The Hards and Medium appear to lose about 3 seconds, in terms of ultimate laptime over the course of 15 laps, some cars are holding on to this better than others, noticably the Red Bulls and the Ferraris.
The two Softer compounds appear to lose the same 3 seconds in about 10 laps, with the opening flying lap signifcatly better than the next, by about a second, so expect this to be the tyre to qualify on, and only the one flying lap to get it right, with some earlier than we're used to pit stops for the front runners.
With the wear rate of the Pirellis, I hope this doesn't keep the car's in the garage's on Friday and Saturday Practice's as they're saving tyre's, as yet there has been no increase in allocation over the weekend, but I would expect the teams to be pushing for an extra couple sets per a car.
The other big concern is with reliabity, The Ferrari appears to have a clear margin here, consistantly managing to get over the 100 laps a day mark, where as Red Bull are just dipping into that occasionally, All teams have had an issue or two, and with the new rear wing, and return of KER's this is to be expected, the team who appears to be struggling at this stage is the McLaren, there lap count has increased over the last few days and on the last day they managed 107 laps, compared with Ferrari and William's who managed 121 laps.
The HRT is the only 2011 car yet to turn a wheel. There could always be a suprise there, don't expect a race winning package, but in the world of Formula One you just never know.
The other big concern is with reliabity, The Ferrari appears to have a clear margin here, consistantly managing to get over the 100 laps a day mark, where as Red Bull are just dipping into that occasionally, All teams have had an issue or two, and with the new rear wing, and return of KER's this is to be expected, the team who appears to be struggling at this stage is the McLaren, there lap count has increased over the last few days and on the last day they managed 107 laps, compared with Ferrari and William's who managed 121 laps.
The HRT is the only 2011 car yet to turn a wheel. There could always be a suprise there, don't expect a race winning package, but in the world of Formula One you just never know.
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