Monday preseason testing will begin on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. With only a numbered amount of testing days, these days are very important for the teams. They want to test there new cars and new parts and hopefully win the championship this year. And overall the fans can finally see all the cars and hopefully some nice hot laps.
Regulations.
The FIA is very clear in their sporting regulations about testing. The teams are not allowed to test their car's only at certain moments determined by the FIA (the testing days). This is to decrease the influence of money in the sport and give us exciting races to look forward to. With cars that are not perfect and can break down with motor- or brakes failures, this keeps things exciting. Here are some of the import rules.
Teams are permitted to carry out only a very limited amount of testing with a current car (or previous year’s car) in a single calendar year.
Promotional events (of which each team is allowed two per season up to a maximum distance of 100km each) and demonstration events (of which each team is allowed two per season - plus any organized by F1's commercial rights holder - up to a maximum distance of 15km using demonstration tires)
Between February 1 and ten days before the first race of the season, the teams are permitted to take part in two team tests of no more than four days. One of the days during these two tests may be set aside for wet-weather tire testing.
Once the season is underway, the teams are permitted to take part in two team tests of no more than two consecutive days at circuits where a Grand Prix has just taken place. These tests must commence no less than 36 hours after the end of said Grand Prix
Two days of each in-season test must be allocated to young driver training. A young driver is classified as someone who has completed two or fewer Grands Prix.
History.
At a test day, you expect things to not work out. But the weather didn't help often either. The teams can handle the rain and the hot temperatures but what if snow starts to fall and turns the track in a cross-country ski trail, even the best cars with the most downforce have to stay in the garage. While you could expect snow on Silverstone in February, It's certainly not what you expect at Barcelona. But the unexpected happened and it started to snow on the track in the 2003 season.
In order to avoid wintry conditions, Formula1 testing has more recently taken place in warmer climates. But not even the hot kingdom of Bahrain was the F1 immune from the weather. In the 2009 season, a heavy sandstorm swept over the track and covered the track with a fine-grained layer. The test programme, therefore, was put on hold.
Breakdowns.
At a time were no restrictions on testing in Formula1, Breakdowns and technical issues had no big consequences. But now with only 8 test days before the season starts a breakdown can cost you. Because you can only test your new parts on these test days. The teams are prohibited from testing these parts during the race weekend. So every test kilometer lost is a major setback for these teams.
The breakdowns on test days can have a knockout effect for the rest of the season. Sebastion Vettel four-time world champion can testify. Back in the season of 2014 the Renault motor in de RedBull went on strike and prohibited the driver from making laps. Meanwhile, the Mercedes was doing lap after lap without any problems. After this major setback Red Bull was unable to make up the lost ground and was defeated after four consecutive titles there was a new king.
McLaren also had a case of bad luck in 2015. Over the full twelve test days, the British team only managed to do just 380 laps, by far the lowest mileage of all the teams. Mercedes managed to do 1340 laps in just the 8 days preseason testing. So the knowledge they had about the Honda power unit was therefore limited, and the season was disastrous just as the testing days.
Those test days are very important for the teams because lost mileage is hard to get back over one season. So we can look out for the test days starting on the 26 of February and hopefully see some good racing this season. And just maybe we can already see after testing who can win the championship.
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