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Just for the love of God, avoid Autosport's forums. If you think we can be unreasonable...

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

Stopped doing that a long time ago.

There was also a tyre test for Ferrari post-Bahrain.

It seems it's Red Bull kicking off because Pirelli haven't got round to them yet.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

Agreed. Get all the teams involved, not just one.

But Ferrari are also kicking off. So, no.

The fact that it seems like it was done in secret is the main issue here. Expect a Mercedes pole in Canada then.....

If Pirelli, The FIA & the teams who got to test believe they were legal then why try to keep them quiet?

All this has done is open Pirelli up to more criticism, Especially if Mercedes suddenly find a cure for there tyre wear problems.

I'm sure the quote in the Autosport article was taken a little out of context, but Horner's reasoning that Mercedes got both cars on the front row at Monaco after a Barcelona test ignores the fact that both cars were on the front row in Barcelona before the test ...

Aside from that, it's legal but isn't the best way of doing things and anyone at either Mercedes or Pirelli who thought that, once discovered, this wouldn't make for one very messy fan, is an idiot ... Ferrari complaining after they also had a test is no surprise, it would be a surprise if they weren't complaining ... also suspect that making vocal complaints distracts people from their test.

I don't see the problem.

Several teams are supposedly complaining about the tyre wear and are demanding that Pirelli do something about it.

Pirelli decide that the best thing to do is to gather extensive data on how the tyre is used by the car that chews them up the most, which will make the problems much clearer than if they were doing a test with a team that is marginal on wear.

Pirelli uses this data to create a much more equal tyre from Canada onwards.

All the purists with sand in their vaginas stop moaning (pfft...yeah, right).

What's the fuss?

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Violation of sporting regulations
Violation of testing agreement
Lack of regulation of what Mercedes could do with development of the car
Use of a current season car, rather than previous generation
Exclusive data for Mercedes regarding the next tyre to be used in Canada
Secrecy of the test is extremely worrying, as you don't hide what is completely above board

What Pirelli have done isn't really the issue. The rest of it is a massive issue.

Red Bull have filed a protest against Mercedes over breach of testing regulations.

Red Bull has protested Mercedes for breach of the testing regulations ... don't see that working as the FIA said it knew about it. They'll claim it wasn't a car test but done at the behest of Pirelli.

Which ones? If the Autosport article is correct, then Pirelli and Mercedes were within their rights to do what they did.



I don't believe that Mercedes would've had any control over the running programme. They would've run as Pirelli asked them to. They might've gotten some data out of it, but nothing very useful. And Pirelli would've gotten nothing useful out a team running an outdated car.



Pirelli didn't even announce that they were changing the tyre until after the test had started. I'd be amazed if they had a batch of Montreal-spec tyres sitting at Barcelona airport on Sunday night...



If the FIA knew about it\observed it, I have no worries.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

Change of subject to a (sort of) happier one ... Maria de Villota just did a feature on Spanish TV, she looked well and in good spirits ...

Pirelli are well within their right. They don't have to obey the sporting regulations or the testing agreement. However Mercedes do.



Based on? And what's to stop them running a new wing? As Brundle said - this was planned in advance. You do not organise this sort of thing in an afternoon. Mercedes have to prepare.



Worked fine for 3 years. I don't see why it'd suddenly become an issue. Pirelli did not suffer from using an outdated car, they suffered from common sense. If you experiment enough eventually you get it wrong and need to fix it. Pirelli should not be criticised for 1 mistake in all this time.



Well no, because the data gathered was being used for the tyre. So it's a development tyre, which will be the basis for the Montreal tyre. If you want to know exactly how important that is look at Indy, when Michelin tyres blew apart all over the place, and Goodyears ground apart in NASCAR. Meanwhile Bridgestone had inside information from Firestone regarding the surface properties, and built a tyre specific for it. Tyre data is so incredibly important it cannot be overstated.



I do. And so does everyone else given it's a violation of the regulations.

"It's legal!"
"Why did you keep it a secret if it was all above board?"
"Because...stuff, n stuff?"

Yeah, that sounds legit as hell.

Edit: LOL Ross Brawn. "It's not a secret, but we just didn't tell anyone. It isn't our fault they didn't notice our trucks leaving". Yeah Ross, that's not secretive...

Ross Brawn just said there was no attempt to keep it secret & that it was upto Pirelli rather than Mercedes to inform people about it.

Also said that Pirelli only gave them codes & never any details on which compounds were been tested & that they were mostly testing stuff for 2014.

Mercedes never ran any updates on any day of the test.

Clearly this particular exception that Pirelli owns would force the team that they chose to run with to 'break' the testing agreement.



Because the test was not for Mercedes' benefit. Again, I also believe the FIA were present, and they would have made sure that Mercedes did not run any unhomogolated parts.



Because they are attempting to fix a particular issue that cars this year are having? It wouldn't do them a lot of good to have them run a W01 for 3 days if it doesn't chew the tyres up. They'd learn nothing.



And I suspect that part of the agreement for the test was that Mercedes was given no access to the tyre data, for that very reason.



I can't explain why they chose to keep it a secret. I would give them a few hours to provide an explanation. And again, you haven't provided a regulation which this test violated.

If the FIA were happy that this test was conducted to their standards, then it's no worry of mine.

_________________
Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

whether it is in or not within the sporting regulations, it is just not done that this was like kept a secret, and 1000 kms of testing... I mean, you can do a whole lot more than just test the tyres...

it's not fair towards the other teams.

Remember Ferrari's so called "filming day" at Fiorano in 2010, when they used it to test the new car?

According to Ted Kravitz on Sky, The Ferrari test earlier this year was done using the 2010 car which is legal under the regulations.

The problem Red Bull & Ferrari (Who joined Red Bull in protesting Mercedes) is because they used there 2013 car which your only supposed to use for film days & straght line aero runs.