As you were in Barcelona: Merc dominant (though reliability issues have spread to the drivers), Ferrari looking like they've made significant progress and have 2 happy drivers, Red Bull also looking quite confident.
Torro Rosso, Lotus, Sauber and Williams all doing decent testing, too.

Which leaves Force India, who are running last year's car and of course McLaren Honda.

Hats off for designing such a radical car; I just hope it gets to run competitively before Melbourne (or even in Melbourne, given what Alonso has been saying!)

Love the pictures of that McLaren MP4/4 - it looks so clean compared with today's cars - especially that front wing: one slot and some flat triangular end plates - it just makes you realise how much aero has come on in the intervening years.

Bad news about Alonso, though hopefully his trip in the helicopter was precautionary rather than for essential treatment...

McLaren not having much luck so far.

Alonso crashes in testing at Barcelona

Glad to read he seems to be OK. I wonder what happened.

I'm excited to see what the new season brings. Merc seem to be easily holding their dominance. But who is going to be chasing them?

I'm very excited about the new season too! Merc will dominate "for sure", but there's a whole host of teams queuing up behind. I still think McLaren will win a race this year.

Something a bit fishy about the Alonso crash yesterday.....

I agree.

Very strange. Hope he is genuinely ok!

According to a very full and detailed statement by McLaren, certain sections of the media have been whipping up a storm over not much...

F1 Fanatic report

Apparently he was suffering with wind? not that he knows the circuit well or anything and maybe be aware of such a problem:)

Manor/Marussia hoping to be on the grid in Melbourne.

And......

Alonso leaves hospital.

I tend to concur with the following view on the Alonso crash, taken from Joe Saward's blog:

"The conspiracy theories are pretty lurid, but there are lots of questions about the accident. I don’t know the answer, but I do know that the first rule of PR is never tell lies because you will be found out. McLaren knows this and so a lengthy explanation from the team about what happened is to be respected because they have nothing to gain from lies."

Good to see Alonso has left hospital and good to see that F1, like a number of sports, is taking concussion seriously.

If only Gary Hartstein weren't keeping tight-lipped (on legal advice after a run in with the FIA's bullies and lawyers), I'm sure he would be able to give his opinion on his excellent blog.

Jim, I read some tweets from Gary Hartstein yesterday and he too questioned the length of time Alonso spent in hospital. I'll see if I can find them and put up a link.

Hartstein/Alonso

Hartstein/Alonso

Hartstein/Alonso

Hartstein/Alonso

Hartstein/Alonso

Interesting, Bezzer, thanks. I so seldom use Twitter these days, I missed this completely.

Intriguing...

Yes. The BBC caption in the testing coverage was intriguing - wondering if Alonso would start in Aus at all.

Gary Hartstein's "gut feeling" is that Alonso suffered a medical problem that led to the accident... This is no more than (informed) speculation, but it would be pretty unsettling if true. I *want* to believe McLaren's version of events, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult.

Things not going brilliantly on the track, either...

McLaren have finished for the day. Apparently a hydraulic leak.

Now I'm not being funny, but even the dog of a Renault power unit that made it's debut in 2014 was better than this Honda offering!

If Manor do get a car on track for Melbourne, I think they'll beat this Honda/Mclaren shambles.

I think that's a harsh assessment, bezzer. Honda are not returning to F1 to make up numbers, they want to win; McLaren - with Peter Prodromu's help - have designed a car that takes the development of the current regulations to its extreme so far. Honda have been expected to design and build a powertrain to match that brief. I'm not in the least bit surprised that there have been a lot of teething troubles. Of course they would have wished it had gone much, much better, but I'm still a long way from either writing it off or ridiculing their efforts to engineer innovatively to be the best.

It seems that there is a shed load of overnight re engineering of components going on which as good as it may be does suggest they are having to play catch up due to a lack of development time. If the chassis is half decent then maybe mid season they will be back on winning form. Fingers crossed!

I've always followed Lotus with interest!

Jim, I wasn't ridiculing their efforts I was merely pointing out that last year the 3 engine manufacturers weren't blighted with the same teething problems as Honda are. By the final test even the Red Bulls were clocking 100+ laps in a day. And of course Ricciardo even managed to put it on the podium (briefly) in Melbourne.

I'm not sure I agree with your view that the engine was designed around the 'size zero' rear end. From what I've read, the Honda powertrain was in development before Prodromu left Red Bull.

As I said I wasn't ridiculing them. I hope they can get some miles in over the next 3 days and start on the long road back to the top.

It seems McLaren are continuing to use their own MGU-K as the Honda effort isn't performing as it should. Last years Renault had similar problems in the first test. As I said in a previous post it looks like Honda are struggling to get the whole powertrain package to work together.

Sorry, bezzer, it sounded to my cynical ear like ridicule with words like dog and shambles!

But clearly you are right that the development is seriously behind schedule.

I can't imagine that the McLaren design was witheld from Honda, so I assume they must have realised they were being asked for something fairly exceptional.

I hope it does come together.

Maybe shambles was too harsh a word to use. Probably should have said 'effort' instead.


On a positive note, JB has clocked up 8 29 44 laps by lunchtime.

A quick heads up in case some of the posters on here haven't seen the FCCUK 2015 F1 Prediction League

It'd be great if we had a few more entrants.

And don't worry too much about finishing at the bottom of the pile, JimO usually fills that spot

I've vaguely seen the prediction league, but have no idea how it works. I can't imagine explaining it to me would be top of anyone's list of ways to spend a week. Or two.

Jim, it really isn't that difficult to register and play.

You have a budget of £60m and with that you choose 2 drivers, a chassis (Team) and an engine. You also have a joker to play at a race of your choice which doubles your points score at that race.

Drivers costs are as you'd expect - Hamilton the most expensive at £26m and at the other end of the scale, Nasr is £1m.

Similarly the Mercs engine and it's chassis are the most costly.

A little tip, if you find your drivers/engine/chassis combination has already been taken, change your joker race.

Go on, give it a go!

Jim if I can do it anyone can, go on give it a go! I think I finished 7th or 8th last season which pleased me.:)

Spookily, Team Higher than JimO is currently 2 slots Higher than JimO

I'm really hoping I don't end up with egg on my face.....

Mind you, I've just checked JimO's entry and he has Alonso and McLaren......

To be totally fair if Alonso doesn't race this year I'll allow changes. I remember how pissed off I was when McLaren lost their points and it was imposed on the league