I would say that the road and highway system is one of the top things I love about Texas! I might just take you up on that.

Also I just booked my hotel room...far away and quite expensive. Thankfully I decided to do this now rather than waiting.

Interesting take on the standing restarts after cautions from Daniel Ricciardo:

Ricciardo thinks both the fairness issues and safety matters are as important as each other in relation to the new rule.

"I don't want to go into it too much, but if you are leading the race by 20 seconds, the safety car comes out and you lose that 20 seconds advantage, then what was looking like an easy victory is still questionable.

"That is already a big disadvantage for the leader who has worked hard to build up that gap.

"To then put him on the start, and anything can happen at the starts, not only an accident, but you get a poor start you can be from first to fourth before Turn 1, it seems harsh on the leader.

"Then what is happening with the tyres? If you cannot change them you will lose a lot of temperature. At first my argument was the big disadvantage for the leader, but the big one that everyone is talking about is safety.

"Starts in F1 are already quite tight a lot of the time and that is with new tyres, and tyre warmers.

"If we have tyres with 20 laps on them or even more, because when there is a lot of rubber that has been taken off the tyres, they don't hold temperature, it will be significantly more difficult."

I like you Daniel (probably my favorite driver if I had to choose one) but the entire point of the standing restart it to possibly avoid "easy victories" and make the drivers work harder. Hopefully that might inject some competitiveness into the sport which would make this nascent fan very happy!

A start is a start. Im all for standing restarts. Seems they have now been ruled out. Too bad. That would add some interest into the races overall. Involves the team etc to have a standing restart.

Nice BBC review of the first test.

BBC Sport - Ferrari better. Mercedes brilliant. What we learned from F1 testing

The way Monaco was restarted in 2011 absolutely ruined the race for me, so I have to respectfully disagree. Alonso and Vettel were both on bad tyres when the red flag was brought out and Alonso was doing substantially better under those conditions. Once Red Bull changed tyres any competitiveness between Alonso and Vettel was eliminated. The results of the race did not change, but you knew what they were going to be as soon as tyres were changed and the cars were lined up in grid formation; there was no reason to watch the end of the race (which was only 6 laps and made the race run long).

C'mon Daniel... all 20 drivers in the field have to do the same thing, nobody gets any benefit from the others...

Just shut up and drive..!!!

+1 if they dont like standing starts in the middle why tolerate the beginning of the race. Its just a restart. Deal with it. It involves the team and demands the skill of the driver again. The current restarts are about like predicting the weather in the Sahara......hot ya think? LOL! NO way lol!

something to think about besides the laptime....

"SPEED TRAP FIGURES
Jerez F1 test, February 1-4

1 Felipe Massa (Williams-Mercedes) 307.6 km/h
2 Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) 307.6 km/h
3 Pastor Maldonado (Lotus-Mercedes) 306.8 km/h
4 Max Verstappen (Toro Rosso-Renault) 303.3 km/h
5 Marcus Ericsson (Sauber-Ferrari) 303.3 km/h
6 Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) 300.8 km/h
7 Daniil Kvyat (Red Bull-Renault) 294.2 km/h
8 Jenson Button (McLaren-Honda) 277.6 km/h"

F1 testing analysis: Jerez speed traps expose Mercedes advantage - F1 news - AUTOSPORT.com

Strong data suggest Mercedes were running race trim and very high fuel loads. Pushing for reliability. If true they never were at 100%. I dont see anyone beating them again this year. I see others getting close but not taking the lead over Mercedes. Early days yet!

Pre-season test is like FP1, things could be all over the place, plus we don't know what fuel load and what kind of programs the teams are running.


But one thing can tell is Mercedes is still the team to beat and they are reliable, since the highest top speed and most mileage.

interesting thing is the top 3 on the speed trap are all running merc-engines and they are less than 1 km/h difference on top speed.


during the test, merc were never on the top of the lap time, it's possible they are running certain programs ie. race pace with high fuel load or collecting data for tires degradation and their prime window.

thus they don't have the fastest laptime, but the fastest top speed means they are pushing the engine to the limit to see what can if offers on both speed and reliability.


Ferrari might be upbeat by the laptime but it's only the first pre-season testing, most of the teams haven't put out the true pace... yet.

Test 2 is going on! Results from today-http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/117738

Test 2 - Day 3 results
 

Interesting. Just a few more days of testing and then Melbourne for race 1 of 2015!!!! :):tup:

Maldonado quickest on Day Three

BBC analysis of the recent Barcelona test - BBC Sport - Alonso's crash adds to McLaren's pre-season problems

there's no doubt mecedes is going to be the team to beat, last year they started off with the best engine and chassis.

it's going to be more exciting to see which team is coming 2nd, ferrari, williams, red bull..

and it's going to be more exciting/funny to see where will mclaren land on the grid and can they completed the first race.