2018 Season Launch and Testing Thread

[E.B]

The track is and has been open now for a while As yet not one team has even fired up an engine. Current Air temperature of 1.7C and track temperature of 3.9C.....

[bella]

in fairness they're probably still trying to get the relevant parts up to temperature to enable them to fire the engines up

[Moneyseeker]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Well this is worse than where I am in Hertfordshire. Such a shame it doesn't look like it's going to be rescheduled due to all the teams not agreeing

Yep, and sums up the 'can't do' attitude that so often prevails in F1. Again it must be another example to Liberty of what they have got themselves into, if something so obvious and you would imagine straightforward to resolve, has the usual stumbling block.

[bella]

in fairness it's understandable why some teams wouldn't want to do it - losing filming days, cost of rescheduling flights and extension of hotel booking issues... the teams are running with two sets of staff, for the day and night shifts so it's even more messy than normal.

[djinvicta]

I came past Cataluyna last Sunday afternoon and it was trying to snow then.
The remains of Storm Emma will hit today with snow turning to rain around now. Temperatures are expected to rise by 10c too.

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Well this is worse than where I am in Hertfordshire. Such a shame it doesn't look like it's going to be rescheduled due to all the teams not agreeing

Well, one needs to ask whether if you were one of the two teams that have paid to hire the circuit, one on Friday and the other on Saturday, would you be happy to have to possibly lose that private day if their team members couldn't re-arrange their own schedules to fit in?

This is, collectively, the teams, the FIA and FOM fault for a) having a season that starts so early, and b) flatly refuses to test on a track that is guaranteed to be suitable at this time of the year. It's their greed that means they have to start so early so as to fit in so many money making opportunities over 9 months, and their greed in not being willing to pay to travel to a circuit such as Abu Dhabi.

This is yet another example of the troika being so up their own backsides!

Edit: Was typing this as Bella was posting.

[insane014]

Since salary cap possibilities are equal to none in F1 the only other solution that could balance out the field is testing and development BOP.

Every 3 or so races performance assessment is made to determine the performance gap between the competitors. Depending on the actual gap in percentage some teams get a freeze on development and testing, some just get freeze on development but do get allocated certain number of test miles while the backmarkers get to develop certain parts such as PU or aero and get even more testing mileage.

Real difference maker in this concept would be an escrow account where all the teams put equal amount of dollars but bad performing teams actually get to use it to pay for additional testing and development. You could ban the best performing teams to run Practice sessions on the race weekend but that would hurt ticket sales so coming to track day or two earlier is the way to go but that costs money, therefor it gets paid out of escrow account.

[AdrianM]

The Friday or Saturday question is irrelevant. The proposal was to move to Monday which isn't booked by anyone.

Yes, there would be some issues with hotels, flights etc but I'm sure they could have resolved that.

Usual problem with F1 teams that they can't agree on anything.

It's cheap and easy for teams to get parts out to Barcelona pretty much every day. Abu Dhabi is not the same but the richer teams would have a big advantage because they could afford to charter jets to fly parts out continuously.

[chillibowl]

do we know what teams are against extending the test?

costs for rescheduling travel and staff for sure factor in, but i wonder if some teams also feel there is a tactical advantage to having less testing at this point in their winter program.

a team might feel they are ahead and would like to limit their rivals running, some teams might have already collected enough miles for their preliminary assessments vis a vis their development program, a team may feel like they are currently behind in development (2018 parts are not yet available to them) and dont need to bother with extra running right now plus the added benefit of sticking it to the big budget teams.

as for testing at this time of year in Barcelona...going from memory (so could be wrong) but last week of Feb is when they usually have this test (for many many years now), weather is typically good enough for them to run full programs.

i even recall testing here used to start back in January before testing was limited.

anyways, dont really see how you can blame FOM/teams for bad or unusual weather.

[E.B]

Originally Posted by AdrianM

The Friday or Saturday question is irrelevant. The proposal was to move to Monday which isn't booked by anyone.

Yes, there would be some issues with hotels, flights etc but I'm sure they could have resolved that.
.

There is an FIA problem with running the test on Monday.... ie in effect extending the 2nd test to 5 days. The testing restrictions dont allow for 5 consecutive days testing! FIA bureaucracy for you.

The FIA rules regarding testing specifically state that no test can be longer than four days: "Two tests, open to all competitors, of no more than four consecutive days' duration carried out between 1 February and ten days before the start of the first Event of the Championship."

Adding an extra day on Monday – at the start of the already scheduled second four-day test – would extend it to five days. Thus even if the teams did agree, the FIA would still have to check with its own legal department that it would be on safe ground if it did ignore its own rules.

[S griffin]

Yep, it seems the FIA is too strict with it’s own rules and as a result, means we don’t get anywhere as usual

[Mike Harte]

The subject of the early testing in Barcelona comes up pretty well every year, both on here and in the media. The track temperature is never high enough in February or early March for the tyres to truly "switch on", and most, if not all the teams will state at some point that they will only know how the car is performing when they get to Melbourne.

Whilst the better off teams would like to have the pre-season testing conducted in the Middle East, there are many of the others who also agree because they can get much more meaningful data when they are testing in the right ambient temperatures.

And in relative terms where the teams, both the better off ones and the less fortunate ones, are spending millions on developing the most minute parts of the car, the extra cost of air freighting to the Middle East rather than to Spain is miniscule.

And if as said above that the extra days testing was to be on Monday, then by the time that the teams had packed up and returned to their bases, they would be just in time to refuel the rigs and send them back to Spain for the next testing session.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by E.B

There is an FIA problem with running the test on Monday.... ie in effect extending the 2nd test to 5 days. The testing restrictions dont allow for 5 consecutive days testing! FIA bureaucracy for you.

Considering the weather, one would have thought they could make an exception.

[E.B]

Well, day 3 has just officially finished..... who would have thought we would see McLaren topping the time sheets and the lap count!

In the final minutes Fernando went out and became the first car to cross the start finish line and record a time.
He pitted and then went out again to go purple and set a 2:18.545.
The only car to set a lap time.
Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Sauber and Williams all did a few installation laps, going out and back in.

[steve nielsen]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

The subject of the early testing in Barcelona comes up pretty well every year, both on here and in the media. The track temperature is never high enough in February or early March for the tyres to truly "switch on", and most, if not all the teams will state at some point that they will only know how the car is performing when they get to Melbourne.

Whilst the better off teams would like to have the pre-season testing conducted in the Middle East, there are many of the others who also agree because they can get much more meaningful data when they are testing in the right ambient temperatures.

And in relative terms where the teams, both the better off ones and the less fortunate ones, are spending millions on developing the most minute parts of the car, the extra cost of air freighting to the Middle East rather than to Spain is miniscule.

.

They could have also tested in Jerez or at the Algarve circuit

[Mike Harte]

Originally Posted by steve nielsen

They could have also tested in Jerez or at the Algarve circuit

They could, but, again, the track temperatures will not be as high as they would like. Also, Jerez in particular has been dropped from all team testing because the circuit configuration is not as representative as others, such as Barcelona.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Yep, it seems the FIA is too strict with it’s own rules and as a result, means we don’t get anywhere as usual

My thought is that the planning for this didn't allow for any type of weather contingencies. Little or no wiggle room for adjusting when things don't go as planned. Right now they bump up against PR photo stuff and their own rule regarding number of days of testing (4 vs. 5) Question is... will they adjust the schedule to bake in some flexibility in the future or not?

Richard

[chillibowl]

i hope not.

all things being equal, the less days they have to dial in their cars during testing the potential for a more interesting season goes up imo.

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Mike Harte

This is, collectively, the teams, the FIA and FOM fault for a) having a season that starts so early, and b) flatly refuses to test on a track that is guaranteed to be suitable at this time of the year. It's their greed that means they have to start so early so as to fit in so many money making opportunities over 9 months, and their greed in not being willing to pay to travel to a circuit such as Abu Dhabi.

Season really doesn't start all that much earlier these days. Rio in mid-late March used to be the 1st race and these days it is Melbourne in mid-late March.

Rio used to have a test period leading into the GP of about 10 days or so and that wouldn't be possible at the Albert Park street track.

Weather in Europe CAN be "iffy" this time of year for testing - I can remember heading to Estoril for a test and driving through a full-on blizzard in France but it was lovely when we got to Portugal and the teams there had a good test. Tests or shakedowns at Silverstone often were limited to 2 lap runs so that tyres could go back into blankets and be warmed up again.

Fly-away tests were fairly commonplace back in the day (Kyalami was good for that) but that was in the days that there weren't test restrictions so a few teams might book a track together and head off there, another group of teams might book a different track etc. It seems to be more complex when the FIA is booking the track and all teams are going. Middle East testing would probably make a lot of sense this time of year to reduce weather risk and as it is only 5 or 6 flying hours from team bases, the logistics could probably be managed too. Maybe not for both tests but if 1 was scheduled, at least weather risk could be dealt with each year.

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by steve nielsen

They could have also tested in Jerez or at the Algarve circuit

The teams would much prefer Jerez for location, climate and circuit layout but the tarmac is totally unrepresentative of other tracks and the local government won’t resurface it differently.

Algarve too bumpy.

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by peebee2

The teams would much prefer Jerez for location, climate and circuit layout but the tarmac is totally unrepresentative of other tracks and the local government won’t resurface it differently.

Algarve too bumpy.

Agree about Jerez. The 'Autódromo Internacional do Algarve' has had some cash splashed on it, including resurfacing in parts to reduce the amount of bumps. It was certainly better when I raced there last October. Not that resurfacing always works- The home of the British GP has just been resurfaced and according to friends that have been testing there, now has bumps where there were none before.... Maybe they'll settle.

[F1Guy]

Day 4 morning! No snow but very foggy.

[F1Guy]

Second test should really be in Melbourne. The construction of the Albert Park circuit is already underway. To build it two weeks earlier would not pose that much of an issue I wouldn't think. Plus side, is having the F1 circus and it's multi million dollar people hanging around for two more weeks in and around the city of Melbourne. That has got to be beneficial for Melbourne's (and the state's) economy I would think.

Also, everyone in the F1 circus loves Melbourne. So that issue is already solved. It would only be a logistical issue with shipping updated parts, and the tree hugging hippies that would pose a problem.

[chunterer]

Originally Posted by F1Guy

Second test should really be in Melbourne. The construction of the Albert Park circuit is already underway. To build it two weeks earlier would not pose that much of an issue I wouldn't think. Plus side, is having the F1 circus and it's multi million dollar people hanging around for two more weeks in and around the city of Melbourne. That has got to be beneficial for Melbourne's (and the state's) economy I would think.

Also, everyone in the F1 circus loves Melbourne. So that issue is already solved. It would only be a logistical issue with shipping updated parts, and the tree hugging hippies that would pose a problem.

Ignoring anyone who lives locally who need to go about their daily business, of course. 😉

[peebee2]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

Agree about Jerez. The 'Autódromo Internacional do Algarve' has had some cash splashed on it, including resurfacing in parts to reduce the amount of bumps. It was certainly better when I raced there last October. Not that resurfacing always works- The home of the British GP has just been resurfaced and according to friends that have been testing there, now has bumps where there were none before.... Maybe they'll settle.

You can resurface Algarve as much as you want but it won’t address the shoddy building standards originally used with poor foundations.

Resurface today, ridiculously bumpy again tomorrow. Very little single seater action there as the teams just don’t want to go due to floor damage etc.