SHREYASCONF1

Ferrari had previously topped the times throughout the first two days of testing, with Sebastian Vettel enjoying a strong start to the week. However, Kimi Raikkonen was not so fortunate as a suspected fuel system problem left him confined to the garage for the first three hours of the session.

Raikkonen did finally emerge before lunch but completed just four laps before the chequered flag, leaving him without a lap time so far in the SF16-H.

Nico Hulkenberg set the fastest time of the morning session of day three in Barcelona as Ferrari completed just four laps.

The Force India driver set the pace with a 1:25.286, leaving him nearly three quarters of a second clear of the rest of the field. It was Hulkenberg's first time in the VJM09 after Alfonso Celis opened the test and Sergio Perez drove on Tuesday, but he was quickly up to speed as he set the pace on medium tyres.

#tbt The top nine cars were all covered by less than 1.7s, with Romain Grosjean ninth on another impressive morning for Haas. The new team managed to get in 54 laps, already 23 more than Grosjean was able to complete on Monday.

• Nico Hulkenberg Force India 1:25.286 37 Laps

• Kevin Magnussen Renault Sport +0.726 60 Laps

• Nico Rosberg Mercedes +0.796 72 Laps

• Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso +0.953 64 Laps

• Daniil Kvyat Red Bull +1.211 28 Laps

• Felipe Massa Williams +1.426 55 Laps

• Felipe Nasr Sauber +1.554 59 Laps

• Jenson Button McLaren +1.633 44 Laps

• Romain Grosjean Haas +1.669 52 Laps

• Rio Haryanto Manor +4.522 25 Laps

• Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari No time 4 Laps

*it's sad that Ferrari couldn't get any mileage today, shouldn't be a reliability issue!
*K Mag back in action with Renault with pretty good times' at p2.
*God knows why merc's are doing so much with their car, okay maybe it's testing but still that distance is very high for a works team.
*Toro Rosso ahead of red bull that's again a surprise.
*Haas was unable to use the potential of their car today also
* looking foreword to day 4, the last day of test 1 at Barcelona, i think Ferrari and Renault should work a little bit because of reliability issues and data collection.

Toro Rosso should have got 2016 engine. 

An outline proposal for the elimination qualifying was discussed.

-16 minutes duration;

- After 7 minutes, the slowest driver is eliminated;

- Slowest driver eliminated every 1 minute 30 seconds thereafter until the chequered flag;

- 7 drivers eliminated, 15 progress to Q2.

- 15 minutes duration;

- After 6 minutes, slowest driver eliminated;

- Slowest driver eliminated every 1 minute 30 seconds thereafter until the chequered flag;

- 7 drivers eliminated, 8 progress to Q3.

- 14 minutes;

- After 5 minutes, slowest driver eliminated;

- Slowest driver eliminated every 1 minute 30 seconds thereafter until the chequered flag;

- 2 drivers left in final 1 minute 30 seconds.

Red Bull and Renault went to the brink last year as competitive struggles and a public war of words left their relationship in tatters, and them all set for an acrimonious parting of ways.

In the end, as Mercedes, Ferrari and Honda refused to play ball,Red Bull had to return cap in hand to Renault to renew their deal, albeit under very different circumstances.

From now on, Red Bull is no longer the preferred partner: for Renault has its own works team and everything is being done is to ensure that its Enstone operation gets back to the top.

And secondly, Red Bull will have a tougher time criticising its engine partner – for the TAG Heuer rebranding should help a little in ensuring that Renault's name does not get dragged through the mud.

Embracing the future

“Pascal is a sharp driver with a very promising future; Manor Racing is excited to have him aboard. We’re a small team up for a big challenge this season, so we’ve chosen a driver with the talent and hunger to match our own on-track ambitions. Pascal has impressed in testing for Mercedes and Force India, together with commanding performances in DTM, culminating in the championship win last year. Manor Racing is perfectly placed to help Pascal make a big impact in his first season. We’re looking forward to it!”

“Manor Racing is a great place for me to start my Formula One racing career – I’m very pleased to be here. It’s a small and totally focused team and I soon hope to know everyone. Though it’s my first F1 season my aim is to help Stephen and the guys achieve their goals. It will be a tough challenge but I think we should be able to challenge for points along the way. It’s going to be good fun. A word for my racing family at Mercedes-Benz, and particularly for Toto, who have guided my career this far and made this opportunity possible. Thanks for the incredible support to help me achieve my dream; now it’s down to me to grab the moment and perform on track.”

FROM “racingclothesline”

There are a number of issues with today’s Formula One. Viewership is steadily declining and talented drivers are finding it harder to make it to Formula One because of a lack of sponsorship. There have been a lot of criticisms about the way that the sport is being run, but not nearly as many rational solutions. Could something that happened in the past be the solution to our current issues?
GP2 is the feeder series for Formula One, meaning it is supposed to produce the future Formula One drivers. However, there is a kink in the F1 driver production hose. Because the sport of Formula One has become so expensive to compete in, the current teams in the sport are placing a heavier requirement on funds from sponsors. This means that drivers who want to race in Formula One need to get more sponsorship contracts than they did in the past. As a result, the wealthy drivers are managing to find their way into the sport easier than the truly talented drivers that may not have the funds required.

Could a GP2 and Formula One partnership be the solution? Although it may seem like an outrageous idea to have Formula One cars racing in the same event as GP2 cars, it’s not that uncommon. In fact, in the earlier years of Formula One, many non-championship events were held in which Formula One and Formula Two cars could compete. This didn’t only happen for non-championship races, but there were also some events in the championship where Formula Two cars were welcome to compete, like in the 1969 German Grand Prix. Sure, it happened in the past, but how could this fix the issues today?

© GP2 Series Media Services

The way that the currently feeder structure is setup, new drivers pretty much require a lot of financial backing that they can use to get a contract with a low ranking Formula One team. The drivers hope that by racing with a Formula One team, they can get their foot into the door and be noticed by other teams. Having Formula One and GP2 cars racing at the same time could potentially give the future Formula One drivers a way to get exposure without having to collect as many sponsors or spend as much of their life savings. Currently, the F1 bosses sort of have to be in the process of looking for a new driver before they notice a GP2 driver, but when GP2 drivers competing in the same event as you, it would be quite difficult for team management not to notice a driver in GP2 that is performing well.

This would also benefit the team and sport sponsors. The sponsors in GP2 would have their brands exposed on a larger scale, as the global Formula One audience would now also be watching GP2. This also gives Formula One sponsors a cheaper alternative without losing as much brand exposure. This also brings me to the next benefit, regarding a larger audience size. Although this would probably benefit GP2 more than Formula One, seeing as many GP2 fans are also fans of Formula One, combining both GP2 and Formula One fans has the potential to attract more viewers to broadcasts and create a larger fan base.

The races could also be more exciting. In any motorsport that races in classes, you are always overtaking someone. Part of the excitement in Formula One is when you come up to overtake a backmarker. It also provides more competition at the front by preventing the leaders to create a sizable gap, as they will need to slow down to navigate through the backmarkers and GP2 cars. However, the GP2 cars are not that much slower than Formula One cars, so they wouldn’t be a hazard to the faster Formula One cars.

Finances can also be improved. In the current financial situation, Formula One is seeking ways to cut costs. GP2 cars are considerably cheaper than the current Formula One cars, so it’s possible that the current Formula One teams could learn from GP2 and find various ways to cut costs and save money. Don’t get me wrong: this layout wouldn’t be all positive.

Every idea has negatives and this idea is no different. One of the main drawbacks of this plan would be the way that GP2 is currently organized. Unlike Formula One, GP2 has a feature and a sprint race setup, meaning that they participate in two races per weekend. This would mean that GP2 could only merge with Formula One for the feature race and hold the sprint race after the Formula One race or drop the sprint race all together. Race length would also be an issue, as GP2 races are a little more than half the distance of a Formula One race. This means that fuel consumption could become an issue and reliability could also play a factor.

Unfortunately, there are also too many cars. With Formula One’s grid size of 22 and GP2’s 26 cars, the grid would increase to a staggering 48 cars! You may be able to race at the larger circuits, but it would be virtually impossible to race with all of these cars at the smaller street circuits. This would mean that some of the GP2 cars would not be able to take part in the events or certain circuits could not use the F1-GP2 combined events.

© Pirelli & C. S.p.A.The other major issue with this plan would be the increase in the cost of television broadcast rights. The rights to broadcast Formula One on television already costs an arm and a leg, but once you add GP2 to the mix, they will want a slice of the pie too. This means that the rights will have to become more expensive to adjust for that. This could also present an issue if the Formula One Management Group ever decided to buy out the GP2 rights, as FOM are ultra-restrictive on who uses their footage.

Although you might think that this is a complete ridiculous idea, there would surely be a good and a bad side. However, there would probably be too many hurdles to overcome to implement this idea, not to say that we couldn’t find a way around these challenges.

So could be have some non-championship races like in the past? Probably not. The current schedule is far too hectic for teams to spend time racing in events that won’t count for anything in the championship. Not to mention, the expenses associated with entering a car in an event without championship gain would be an obstacle for teams.