BMW V8 Rocking the Competion

[E46Fanatic]

Based on top times in the Jerez tests over the last week...1. de la Rosa McLaren 1:17.703 273 *2. Badoer Ferrari 1:18.237 79 *3. Villeneuve BMW 1:18.752 2494. Button Honda 1:19.094 1935. Rosberg Williams 1:19.174 1116. Kovalainen Renault 1:19.287 2287. Montagny Renault 1:19.468 2078. Briscoe Toyota 1:19.563 1469. Trulli Toyota 1:19.670 22510. Webber Williams 1:19.684 9911. Gene Ferrari 1:19.687 28512. Zonta Toyota 1:19.805 12013. Monteiro MF1 1:19.952 9314. Wurz McLaren 1:20.105 21715. Davidson Honda 1:20.106 20516. Karthikeyan Williams 1:20.291 4917. R.Schumacher Toyota 1:20.454 6518. Paffett McLaren 1:20.484 14719. Klien Red Bull 1:20.581 8020. Rossiter Honda 1:20.603 10521. Coulthard Red Bull 1:20.854 15122. Winkelhock MF1 1:20.856 5223. Van Hooydonk MF1 1:21.625 7024. Biagi MF1 1:21.878 9025. Rusinov MF1 1:21.990 2926. Albers MF1 1:22.683 14027. del Monte MF1 1:24.350* restricted V10------------Insider information at BMW Sauber F1. Its looking really good so far for 2006... yaay:After all these cosworth and their 20k rpm bragging BMW decided to turn up rpm a "little" too towards expected melbourne rpm after the program was finished and the second engine had its burn in completed.Well...workedFastest today, yes but that was not the pure intention of todays laptime, it was more down to test the engine in more race like circumstances than anything else and luckily it worked out which shows once more that the development roadmap of the engine is going just fine, and Jacques didnt lose any of his "handle a tricky car" abilities.And, keeping in mind the C24 really doesnt suit the V8 at all from its behaviour, Jacques and the team did an outstanding job and planted something Nick will have to chew on. Rampf once said in 2002 he wants both drivers to fire each other up during testing with great and ever greater performances to beat, let the games begin----------

 

[ALBundy]

Yup, as expected BMW always come up with one of the best, if not the best engines on the grid, and given their experience in producing racing V8s in the past, there is no doubt come March 2006 they should be competitive in the first Grand Prix, assuming the chassis is up to par!

Since Torro Rosso Scuderia (formerly known as Minardi) is running restricted V10s and looking at the times posted with these engines, there could some surprises! The restricted V10s still seem to be faster than new V8s, but then there are still 2-3 months for the teams to develop the V8 engines and probably by then the gap could be smaller