Umm yeah. Only reason I am awake at 5am to look at testing live commentary is because of Schumacher. Why else do people watch F1 anyways? (and honestly I am not being sarcastic here).

i am asking this again
Do you feel bad for Massa aswell?? like you do to Nico??

Yeah if I cared about Massa I'd feel bad for him too I guess.

But since I don't really give a shit about him I actually don't.

lol

Another hater boy

I think hater doesn't mean what you think it means.

So according to you its Poor Nico and you feel bad about him as he gets to go before Schumi in testing and looses psychologically. Track gets a bit faster, times drop and Schumi comes out looking aces!!

But you dont give a Sh!t about Poor Massa who also happens to go before Alonso in testing and looses psychologically. Track gets a bit faster, times drop and Alonso comes out looking aces!!.

Great work mate

I get it you are a massa fan. But whats the point that you are trying to make in the Merc GP thread. That massa should have joined merc alongside Schumi so we could feel sorry for him? I already felt sorry for him when he was on average 0.5 seconds slower than Schumi@Ferrari.

according to mercedes twitter, schumacher did his best lap (1:12.438) on a 30 lap stint

Naah its that MS did 30 laps in total and his best time was 1:12.438. I think it was like a 8-10 lap stint.

edit: hmm going through the as live page it might have been a 15+ lap stint.

yeah sorry, the 30 laps are the total amount of laps completed

Schumacher did a few 1:15+ laps and then came in after about 10 minutes. Doesn't seem that encouraging.

Sure, he probably forgot how to do 1:12 laps since the morning.

It means that Schumacher wasn't happy about something with the car and didn't do a longer run. Bad laptimes coupled with short stints tell us that something is wrong.

And seriously trust me, I am a bigger Schumacher fan than you are. No need to get so defensive.

Testing is to sort out problems.

Its a little worrying that with only 3 hours left he has only done 40ish laps.

http://twitter.com/OfficialMGP/status/8585554580

I hope there's a proper Q & A with both Ross and Michael at the conclusion of this test-I haven't got any idea at all of their initial impressions,apart from vague references to understeering on low fuel and good,consistent pace on full tanks.

Not good.

I do not want to read too much into that, much Ferrari's pace might be of concern to this team, I would think.

According to n-tv, Brawn said that they have some issues with understeering. But they were quite happy in terms of race performance.

At least they are happy with the long runs. Although if the car is not a good qualifier it will be difficult always having to overtake and catch up during races.

I am more concerned with how little time Schumi is spending in the car. Shouldn't he be doing longer runs to check his fitness? Car development is important but Schumacher is what really matters.

There is a live chat with Norbert on the BILD homepage.

He said that the speed of the car is "increasable" yet but everything goes into the right direction.
The car will change quite much till Bahrain, most of the aeroparts will be different then although it might not be visible on the first look

I think they are over that subject by now. He is OK. I am too worried for the little number of laps, but not because of Michael but because we need to put milage in that car. I don't know if there is a problem or why they have so few laps. Anyway, the team has a big mountain to climb this year, I feel. Both Ferrari and McLaren are probably ahead of them and possibly Sauber too. (I know, I know, early days.)
Michael was always good at pushing the team and chasing when in disadvangate though, in fact I think it was his strength more than anybody else's and to me the most impressive thing about him was never the number of titles or wins, but rather his fighting spirit in a not so good car and his ability to push the team. So let's hope he still has it! He will have that 1996-1998ish challenge again, I feel.....

I was hoping more for a 2004.

well they are the only team still running the old diffuser/front wing, no need to panic imo

yes from Ferrari side??

From Schumacher's side ofcourse. I spit in the general direction of ferrari.

I was hopng more of 2000 best MS championship win IMO. but looks like it could be 1996 all over again.

Yes, it would have been nice, but that was never likely IMO.

Although I have to say if he had started in a team that's only 3rd-4th fastest now and slowly pushed the team forward and crowned his comeback-mission with a title at the end of the 3rd year, that would be also OK with me.;) In fact that would be even more satisfactory than starting out in the best car immediately - and I'm positive had he had the best car he still could do it. But there's a lot more challenge in not starting in the best car. I'm trying to look it this way. Especially that I think Schumacher's best was always when he was NOT in the best car (I'm a big fan of his 1996-2000 performances). He really doesn't need to prove anything now. So I consider everything as a bonus in this comeback, but of course I'd like to see him do well and I'd hate to see him struggle. But I think he takes it as fun and I think so should we. I just hope even if the car is not a winner it's good enough for him to have his fun.

I'll be sacrificing a virgin to the dark gods in hope that 96 never happens again.

ps. Any volunteers?

ninja edit: ditto 2005.

or even 2005

Take it easy...

This is just testing and we're still running the 2009 front wing and diffuser!
Besides, consistency will be key in 2010 more than ever before.

Ferrari has a very impressive consistency out of the box. But of course these are probably relatively low fuel loads. I don't know how their car behaves at high fuel load.

hahah
I am a bigger Schumy fan than you are
Just check my post history dude!

I would rather have him stopping to work with the engineers and sort the problems. Plus you know after 10 laps if you are fit, and he did what at least half a GP the other day, a bit more than that.

I would like to believe this, but problem I have is to also believe, that they would run two days on low fuel loads. They were consistently fast, and I think at some point there must have been a full tank, otherwise they wasted two good days.

alonso driving in the 16s today seems like more fuel

Now time to wait till the 10th!

JAF1live #f1 Hydraulic problems have ended the test for Schumacher and Mercedes.

^

thanks for the info, i guess that's easier to fix than a neck

autosportlive Schumacher has confirmed that a "little hydraulic leak" has ended his day early

It seems things went not as smooth as last year.
Hopefully they have some updates for the car next week, as I have to say the car looks quite "unfinished" in comparison to others.

Hydraulic leaks, strange how this car has lots of niggling problems with the BGP was an indestructible missile out of the box.

Still as others have said, there's plenty of upgrades to come on the car. I don't think the Ferrari will see much done to it in the medium term, if the rumours of a significantly revised diffuser are true.

I wouldn't write the Merc off, 09 diffuser and front wing and they haven't been that slow.

True. I think the Merc is probably, at the moment, behind McLaren and Sauber and lacking an ability to warm the tyres quickly. It might well react better when the temperatures start picking up as the winter fades away.

Team principal Ross Brawn admitted though that the team was not where it had hoped to be – with the outfit believed to need to make weight distribution tweaks to its car in time for the next test to optimise its performance on the narrower 2010 front tyres.

"It's always very difficult to judge. On full tanks yesterday (Tuesday) we didn't look too bad but we're a little bit off on pace and (there are problems with) the handling and balance of the car which we can fix for (the next test in) Jerez," he told the BBC. "We know what the problem is.

"Of course the other teams will be progressing as well so we are reasonable, not as quick as Ferrari and Lewis looked quick yesterday. So it looks like we've got a bit of work to do."

Schumacher himself too played down the team's chances for the start of the season.

"I wouldn't expect to be winning right from the beginning," he said. "It wasn't something that I was aiming for and expecting to be the case. But we need to be strong enough on development."


http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81246

Clearly some form of trouble then, otherwise it wouldn't be mentioned. I doubt it means they'll be out of the points, though.

In Ross we trust

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/81244