Aus GP: Lap times 2004/05 comparison.

[Adam43]

So what difference have the regs made? lets look at the Friday practice times for each year.

	        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

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.