From: marti@mint.inf.ethz.ch (Robert Marti)
Subject: Re: Senna test drive Williams
Organization: Dept. Informatik, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, CH
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 15:45:26 GMT

In article <1b0qt4INNs56@uniwa.uwa.edu.au>, humpty@tartarus.uwa.edu.au
(Daniel Ong) writes:
|> cheung@mlb.geomechanics.csiro.au (Lawrence Cheung) writes:
|> >	Prost tested the William Renault on the week after the Portugese GP.
|> >	It was reported by SBS sport in Australia. 
|> >	From the 0055 Info line in Australia, he was said to have clocked a time 
|> >	of 1:16.0... which was the fastest time on the test day. Alesi was
|> >	second with a time of 1:16.9... For comparison, Mansell clocked a time
|> >	of 1:13... in his qualifying for the Portugese GP.
|> 
|> Prost et al were using the smaller tires in preparation for next year. 
|> Therefore their times were expected to be slower than this year's times.
|> I bet if you got Mansell to test on the smaller tires, he wouldn't have
|> been able to handle it and would have been a lot slower than Prost. 
|> After all, Prost beat the shit out of him during the Ferrari days.
|> Interesting to see that Alesi was only .9 of a second slower than Prost.
|> He was testing on a Ferrari wasn't he?  What was that earlier crap about
|> Damon Hill having a faster time than Prost (earlier posting by I dont
|> know who).

I was the one who posted "that earlier crap about Damon Hill having a
a faster time than Prost".  First, let me respectfully suggest that you
watch your language in the future -- even if my info had been (or turns
out to be) incorrect.  Since I cannot afford to go to Estoril to attend
F1 testing, I have to rely on pretty much the same sources of info as
you:  TV, daily papers, and motorsports magazines.

As for the testing times, "Motorsport Aktuell" (a Swiss motorsports
magazine) reported the following times:

1. Damon Hill, Williams                      1:14:19
2. Alain Prost, Williams                     1:14:85 (on 92 tires)
3. Mark Blundell, McLaren,        low to mid 1:15s   (on 92 tires)
4. Michael Schumacher, Benetton, mid to high 1:15s
?. Jean Alesi, Ferrari                       1:16s

(Since this is off the top of my head, I don't remember all testing times
exactly.  I can dig them up, if you like.)  They listed quite a few other
times as well.  (I assume that the times you quoted above are from the
first testing day.)

The interesting part is that "Motorsport Aktuell" says that all times were
achieved with the narrower 93 tires, _except_ the times recorded by Prost
and Blundell.  They also say that Schumacher was about 0.6 seconds slower
on the 93 tires than in practice for the F1 GP a week earlier, while Alesi
was marginally faster (0.1, I think).

Considering that Nigel did 1:13:1.. in practice of the GP -- using the
same tires as Prost -- you can hardly say that Prost would have "beat
the shit out of him", as you chose to put it.

As someone else pointed out, comparing Damon Hill (or Mansell) to Prost
is slightly unfair since both Hill and Mansell have much more experience
with the car and its reactive suspension.

-- 
Robert Marti                    |  Phone:    +41 1 254 72 60
Informationssysteme             |  FAX:      +41 1 262 39 73
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