Have the new aerodynamic changes for the 2019 F1 season made the cars significantly slower?
The wider, simpler, uglier (at least according to Sebastian Vettel) front wings plus the larger rear wings – which Nico Hulkenberg likened to having a parachute attached to his Renault – were originally estimated by the FIA to make the new generation of cars 1-1.5 seconds slower than last year.But on day one at the Circuit de Catalunya today several teams lapped one second within their best times from the same test last season. Not for the first time it seems the aerodynamic gains the teams are capable of have been underestimated. However it bears remembering that the point of the rules change was to make overtaking easier, not to slow the cars down, so we won’t be able to pass judgement on the effectiveness of the new wings until later in the year.
We can, however, examine the early times and lap counts for clues about the general competitive order. This is fairly straightforward in the case of Williams, who look set to log a total of zero laps over the first two days of running. That’s exactly how the team which finished last in 2018 did not need to start the new season.
McLaren covered the fewest laps in pre-season testing of any team in 2017 and 2018, but Williams are likely to take their place this year. Encouragingly for McLaren, they set the second-quickest time in today’s test.
But there lies the rub: McLaren also posted reasonable pre-season testing time last year. In terms of year-on-year improvement, Alfa Romeo (who, as Sauber, were F1’s most-improved team of 2018) has shown the most progress at this very early stage. No wonder Kimi Raikkonen said the lap times came “easily” at the wheel of the new C38.
Of course it is very early days. We’ll get a clearer picture as testing continues and drivers begin to push the performance envelope, fully explore the 2019 tyre range – and their definitive aero packages arrive.
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2019 pre-season lap times compared to last year
No team has lapped the Circuit de Catalunya faster this year than they did in 2018, either in the pre-season test or during the grand prix weekend:
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2019 pre-season mileages compared to last year
Impressively, more than half the teams covered at least 500 kilometers on their first day of testing. With the weather conditions expected to remain good, we could see some huge mileages covered this week.
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ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
18th February 2019, 22:13
No. The best time of Test 1 Day 1 in 2018 was 1m20.179s. Every teams had been beat their 2018 time on the same test day. Weather condition aside, Vettel already two seconds faster.
In 2018 the best test times, 1m17.182s, happen on the seventh or eight day. And we still haven’t seen any car running in the softest compound yet.
Exediron (@exediron)
19th February 2019, 5:28
It’s unlikely that we’ll see a time that fast, if for no other reason than that there isn’t any tyre as soft as the hypersoft available anymore. The C5 tyre is the softest, and a hypersoft was at least a C6 (assuming the C1 is the old hard).
ruliemaulana (@ruliemaulana)
19th February 2019, 5:54
Well, its already 1m18.161s at day one on C3. I think it very likely Seb, Charles and Lewis passed the 2018 benchmark on C5 in the next few test day.
BaKano (@bakano)
19th February 2019, 6:45
I also think it’s weird to compare 1st test day with the all of 2018 test days!
Because that creates statements such as this, that cars are just 1s slower when they were much faster than 1st test day of 2018 and by the end of the second test period everything will be different…
Regardless of not having hypersofts, for one we don’t know how soft C5 is supposed to be since I believe all compounds are new and they will make massive gains in the next 7 testing days (unless weather is bad on all of them).
There is no doubt that cars will be faster than in 2018 testing
ColdFly (@)
19th February 2019, 11:39
When comparing to the pre-season test of last year we forget that teams gain on average 1.5s during the season (I think it was Horner who said that).
Thus even if the aero changes create a 1.5s deficit we should expect the same overall test times as last year (c.p.)
kpcart
19th February 2019, 2:16
I think this comparison is too early, compare day 1 testing to day 1 testing 2018 would be better. What will happen when ferrari puts on the softest tyre on day 8 of testing, it will surely be quicker than today’s times.
Cronies
19th February 2019, 6:27
Agreed, rather have a graph comparing prog.ress upto this point last year.
I.e. day 1 in this case, day 2 today etc. One can then see who got off to a better start this year etc. At the moment the graphs tell us nothing really
Cronies
19th February 2019, 6:29
Top speed comparisons would also be nice team v team and year v year
Newfangled (@newfangled)
19th February 2019, 3:50
Comparing day 1 2018 to day 1 2019 would have been far more beneficial and easy to parse. Nonetheless, thanks, Keith.
Brolloks (@brolloks)
19th February 2019, 4:15
The axes (“lap time” and “team”) are swapped around for the first chart.
lunaslide (@lunaslide)
19th February 2019, 4:56
Is it just me, or do the cars sound a bit more raucous this year?
Jere (@jerejj)
19th February 2019, 9:23
Two seconds off last season’s pole time, and a second off the fastest 2018 pre-season testing time. Not too bad this early into testing with these cars.