Should the testing ban be lifted?

[patmahe]

This season we are seeing cars exhibiting unusual behaviours like porpoising and a lot of it is being put down to the difficulty of simulating real world conditions in wind tunnels etc.

With the budget caps in place, if the testing ban was lifted and if teams could see value in a day's real world testing here and there then why shouldn't they be allowed to do it? Teams could even share the cost if a group of them wanted to go testing. Could even cover some of the cost by allowing spectators to pay in or for paddock or restricted pit lane access.

Anyway, just a thought.

[kambites]

Raising the maximum air and belt speeds in the wind tunnel would probably do just as well.

[PhilAsia]

As long as you've warmed up correctly I don't see why not...
I thaaankkkyou...

[Muzzer79]

Ferrari have their own test track (Fiorano) on their doorstep

It’s therefore cheaper for them to go testing than another team.

This creates disparity. They’d be pounding round there on a comparative shoestring compared to, say, Sauber going testing somewhere.

[Jenny Tailor]

The irony is not lost on me that this is I think the only sport that requires you to use a simulator because you are not allowed to use the real thing?

Darts?
Athletics?
Swimming?
Rowing?
Ski Jumping?

Anyone?

[entropy]

patmahe said:

With the budget caps in place, if the testing ban was lifted and if teams could see value in a day's real world testing here and there then why shouldn't they be allowed to do it? Teams could even share the cost if a group of them wanted to go testing. Could even cover some of the cost by allowing spectators to pay in or for paddock or restricted pit lane access.

Anyway, just a thought.

Teams only have their own interests at heart and will club together for wider political purposes e.g. FOTA, FOCA-FISA war.

I suspect Ferrari will be all too happy to put up with porpoising as long as they are head and shoulders the best car on the grid.

I remember - 2013 IIRC - when Ross Brawn ran Merc and convinced the FIA to grant them a private tyre test because of their inherent problem of heavy rear tyre degradation.

If it was RBR with porpoising what is the likelihood of Horner & Marko looking to influence, sorry, gaslight the authorities by any means necessary? Then again RBR in recent years have come up with aerodynamically flawed cars and got on with the job of sorting it out within contemporary test regulations. As with porpoising, just get on with it as things stand with no in-season testing.

[coppice]

Having spent many happy hours at F1 tests of bloody course they should be reintroduced. Isn't it infuriating that in previous eras of F1 teams tested where and when they liked . despite having tiny budgets compared to today.

[Evanivitch]

Jenny Tailor said:

The irony is not lost on me that this is I think the only sport that requires you to use a simulator because you are not allowed to use the real thing?

Darts?
Athletics?
Swimming?
Rowing?
Ski Jumping?

Anyone?

https://www.teambath.com/sport/bobsleigh/

[MB140]

kambites said:

Raising the maximum air and belt speeds in the wind tunnel would probably do just as well.

I often wonder how they actually police this. I’m pretty sure most of the top manufacturer teams have there own wind tunnels.

For example bunch of Mclarean F1 engineers turn up at night with say the Mclaren road car team testing.

Book the wind tunnel time for testing the latest and greatest Mclarean road car but the model of their F1 car just happens to drop in for the last 30 minutes. How would anyone know apart from a few F1 Mclarean engineers who I am sure have NDA in place reference any work they do.

[Pflanzgarten]

The whole cost cap thing is stupid regardless-someone still has to come last!

Maybe we’re yesterdays men. I come from an age of technical brilliance being combined with talent that drives perfection. Get that right and you deserve to win. See McLaren, Williams, Ferrari, Red Bull and then Mercedes.

Now? Everyone must have a chance, enforces equality drives mediocrity.

[Sandpit Steve]

MB140 said:

I often wonder how they actually police this. I’m pretty sure most of the top manufacturer teams have there own wind tunnels.

For example bunch of Mclarean F1 engineers turn up at night with say the Mclaren road car team testing.

Book the wind tunnel time for testing the latest and greatest Mclarean road car but the model of their F1 car just happens to drop in for the last 30 minutes. How would anyone know apart from a few F1 Mclarean engineers who I am sure have NDA in place reference any work they do.

The way the limits on wind tunnels and CFD work, is for the FIA to have access to the team’s computers.

They couldn’t just drop an F1 car into the wind tunnel for half an hour, and actually extract any data from it, without the computers telling the story.

I actually agree with the idea of allowing road testing as part of the overall package, the difficulty is that the teams have quite different costs associated with getting track time - one team in particular owning their own track and having unlimited access to it. Maybe you’d have to put a notional value of say £50k per day on track rental, to be treated as inside the budget cap.

[thegreenhell]

Sandpit Steve said:

I actually agree with the idea of allowing road testing as part of the overall package, the difficulty is that the teams have quite different costs associated with getting track time - one team in particular owning their own track and having unlimited access to it. Maybe you’d have to put a notional value of say £50k per day on track rental, to be treated as inside the budget cap.

I agree, but £50k is peanuts, even within the cost cap. Ferrari would just do 20 days at Fiorano at that price.

I would make it a notional $1M per day in the form of a reduction of that amount in the team's cost cap. That way they only pay for the actual costs of running for a day, but smaller teams who are already under the cost cap won't be affected by the $1M per day, unlike the bigger teams who would have to carefully balance testing against other costs to stay within the cap. It would therefore act as an equaliser by making testing affordable to the slower teams but not the faster teams.

[honda_exige]

Can't change the rules now, if your car porpoises tough luck get it fixed.

Merc had a baked in advantage for years with the engine tokens and everyone just accepted it. No different now.

[faa77]

Pflanzgarten said:

The whole cost cap thing is stupid regardless-someone still has to come last!

No it's not

And it's not about someone coming last, it's the gap between first and last.

[Pflanzgarten]

faa77 said:

Pflanzgarten said:

The whole cost cap thing is stupid regardless-someone still has to come last!

No it's not

And it's not about someone coming last, it's the gap between first and last.

It’s about artificially staging the gap between first and last.

Brawn GPs happen, Leicester Citys happen but so do Usain Bolts. What would be the answer to him? A training cap to stop him getting too much of an advantage?

[Sandpit Steve]

thegreenhell said:

Sandpit Steve said:

I actually agree with the idea of allowing road testing as part of the overall package, the difficulty is that the teams have quite different costs associated with getting track time - one team in particular owning their own track and having unlimited access to it. Maybe you’d have to put a notional value of say £50k per day on track rental, to be treated as inside the budget cap.

I agree, but £50k is peanuts, even within the cost cap. Ferrari would just do 20 days at Fiorano at that price.

I would make it a notional $1M per day in the form of a reduction of that amount in the team's cost cap. That way they only pay for the actual costs of running for a day, but smaller teams who are already under the cost cap won't be affected by the $1M per day, unlike the bigger teams who would have to carefully balance testing against other costs to stay within the cap. It would therefore act as an equaliser by making testing affordable to the slower teams but not the faster teams.

What I meant by the £50k comment, is that a day’s testing must cost a minimum of that amount from the budget cap towards track rental, irrespective of what it actually costs the team. That’s in the ballpark of what it costs to rent somewhere like Silverstone.

So if Ferrari wants to use Fiorina for the day, and it costs them £5k in marshals, medical and security staff, then they have their budget cap lowered by £45k as a result.

Yes, the total cost to the team of a day’s testing will be well into the six figures, when you include car parts, mechanics, engineers etc.