So what difference have the regs made? lets look at the Friday practice times for each year.
Code:
2004 2005 Difference
Fastest lap 1:24.718 1:25.376 +0.658
Average lap 1:27.107 1:27.090 -0.017
Ave of Ferrari 1:24.772 1:26.360 +1.588
Räikkönen 1:26.579 1:25.676 10.903
Schumacher 1:24.718 1:26.081 +1.363
Massa 1:26.969 1:26.357 -0.612
Alonso 1:25.853 1:26.562 +0.709
Button 1:25.786 1:26.611 +0.825
Barrichello 1:24.826 1:26.639 +1.813
Klien 1:27.724 1:27.544 -0.180
Sato 1:26.967 1:27.891 +0.924
Ave of combo 1:26.178 1:26.670 +0.492
The drivers highlighted are ones that are racing for the same team in '04 and '05 (Jag=RBR). The average of these combos are also shown.
Overall average shows a slight drop, but this is expected as there was no Ferrari and a completely diffferent set of 3rd drivers.
In rough figures the cars are half a second slower than in 2004. Not much I hear you cry. True. However consider the comparison between '03 and '04 shows a huge improvement:
2003 2004 Difference
Code:
Fastest lap 1:26.509 1:24.718 -1.791
Ave lap 1:28.405 1:23.478 -4.927
Ferrari ave 1:27.563 1:24.772 -2.791
So instead of seeing a couple of seconds improvement we have seen a half second drop.
Will this trend continue into the race and qualifying. I guess it will be even more marked when we reach these situations, due to the tyres. In Q they may not try as much. In the race you only get one go at new tyres, and one go at light fuel and only (approx) 15 lap old tyres.