I think it was the Monaco Grand Prix in 1999 that saw Michael Schumacher return to Fiorano on the Friday rest day to practice starts. By the time the race rolled around on Sunday, Schumacher, starting second on the grid alongside Mika Hakkinen, got a brilliant start and took the lead and never looked back, going on to score a vital win for his Championship hopes.
This of course was a time when testing was only regulated by the hours of daylight available, and even then Ferrari, it was suggested, wanted to install flood lights around their private test track. It wasn’t uncommon for teams to test throughout the season either, with the two week break between races seen as an ideal opportunity to gain a few valuable tenths over a competitor. Of course, few teams could afford this amount of around the clock testing, and only one had access to a private test track 24/7.
A reduction in testing was always on the cards, if not to even the playing field, at least as a means to curb some of the out of control spending that was going on to achieve ultimate success. Over recent years the rules have reduced the amount of testing Formula One teams can do, and recently these rules were clarified to close a loophole where teams were using film days for advertising as a means to squeeze out a few extra days of testing.
A little closer to home in the V8 Supercars, teams can run their cars outside of allocated test days for shake downs, demonstration days and driver evaluations. In a series where teams are limited to four test days a year, every extra lap you can get out of a car provides valuable data for the team. This then begs the question, is anything gained from a shake down or a driver evaluation? Jason Bright, from Trading Post Racing thinks so. He expressed concerns recently about the current rules, punching out a series of fast tweets that were surprisingly and refreshingly candid.
Bright’s first tweet started off simple enough. ‘Shaking down the new car today at Winton and testing tomorrow! Lots of small improvements in the new car and lots to test.’ My ears pricked up a little when I read his next tweet, ‘I reckon shake down days are a joke and teams are simply a way got richer teams to constantly get more miles as they introduce new cars!’ Not the most eloquent of sentences, it’s hard to type a tweet on an iPhone, least of all when standing in a cold paddock at Winton, but the underlying suggestion is that the better financed teams take advantage of a loophole in the regulations.
I’m not too interested in right or wrong here, it isn’t my place to judge. I can appreciate that testing has significantly reduced costs. I can understand that it was required to increase parity. What I can’t understand is why it has to be so complicated. Testing isn’t testing if a rookie is driving, even if that rookie is, as Garth Tander pointed out in a tweet, ‘a 5x Bathurst & 5x V8SC champ’. Testing isn’t testing if you’re shaking down a new car. Why not keep it simple? If your race car is on a racetrack, and it’s not a race weekend, you’re testing. You have this many days per year to test. If you exceed this you will be fined.
In a perfect world, given the option every team would test as much as possible to increase their chance of winning. The solution shouldn’t be how many days do we need to cut back on to reduce testing costs, but how can we reduce testing costs to limit the number of days we need to cut back. If testing costs so much that it needs to be cut back to four days a year, maybe the sport needs to look at alternatives.
Why not take a page out of MotoGPs book where test days are run at certain tracks on the Monday following a race weekend. Or alternatively, as Bright suggests, ‘Our fans and sponsors want to see us race not test! More friday practice for fans to watch and scrap test days I reckon!’ Either option solves not one, but three problems. First of all, it provides some more opportunities for teams to test. Next it allows the sports governing body to control and limit all testing to a controlled environment, so none of this ambiguity starts to creep in around shake down and demonstration days. But most importantly it allows the fans a chance to see the cars on track a lot more than they currently do.
Sounds good to me.
You can follow Jason Bright and Garth Tander on Twitter.
Reduce Costs Not Test Days
30 August 2010 08:08 AMI think it was the Monaco Grand Prix in 1999 that saw Michael Schumacher return to Fiorano on the Friday rest day to practice starts. By the time the race rolled around on Sunday, Schumacher, starting second on the grid alongside Mika Hakkinen, got a brilliant start and took the lead and never looked back, going on to score a vital win for his Championship hopes.
This of course was a time when testing was only regulated by the hours of daylight available, and even then Ferrari, it was suggested, wanted to install flood lights around their private test track. It wasn’t uncommon for teams to test throughout the season either, with the two week break between races seen as an ideal opportunity to gain a few valuable tenths over a competitor. Of course, few teams could afford this amount of around the clock testing, and only one had access to a private test track 24/7.
A reduction in testing was always on the cards, if not to even the playing field, at least as a means to curb some of the out of control spending that was going on to achieve ultimate success. Over recent years the rules have reduced the amount of testing Formula One teams can do, and recently these rules were clarified to close a loophole where teams were using film days for advertising as a means to squeeze out a few extra days of testing.
A little closer to home in the V8 Supercars, teams can run their cars outside of allocated test days for shake downs, demonstration days and driver evaluations. In a series where teams are limited to four test days a year, every extra lap you can get out of a car provides valuable data for the team. This then begs the question, is anything gained from a shake down or a driver evaluation? Jason Bright, from Trading Post Racing thinks so. He expressed concerns recently about the current rules, punching out a series of fast tweets that were surprisingly and refreshingly candid.
Bright’s first tweet started off simple enough. ‘Shaking down the new car today at Winton and testing tomorrow! Lots of small improvements in the new car and lots to test.’ My ears pricked up a little when I read his next tweet, ‘I reckon shake down days are a joke and teams are simply a way got richer teams to constantly get more miles as they introduce new cars!’ Not the most eloquent of sentences, it’s hard to type a tweet on an iPhone, least of all when standing in a cold paddock at Winton, but the underlying suggestion is that the better financed teams take advantage of a loophole in the regulations.
I’m not too interested in right or wrong here, it isn’t my place to judge. I can appreciate that testing has significantly reduced costs. I can understand that it was required to increase parity. What I can’t understand is why it has to be so complicated. Testing isn’t testing if a rookie is driving, even if that rookie is, as Garth Tander pointed out in a tweet, ‘a 5x Bathurst & 5x V8SC champ’. Testing isn’t testing if you’re shaking down a new car. Why not keep it simple? If your race car is on a racetrack, and it’s not a race weekend, you’re testing. You have this many days per year to test. If you exceed this you will be fined.
In a perfect world, given the option every team would test as much as possible to increase their chance of winning. The solution shouldn’t be how many days do we need to cut back on to reduce testing costs, but how can we reduce testing costs to limit the number of days we need to cut back. If testing costs so much that it needs to be cut back to four days a year, maybe the sport needs to look at alternatives.
Why not take a page out of MotoGPs book where test days are run at certain tracks on the Monday following a race weekend. Or alternatively, as Bright suggests, ‘Our fans and sponsors want to see us race not test! More friday practice for fans to watch and scrap test days I reckon!’ Either option solves not one, but three problems. First of all, it provides some more opportunities for teams to test. Next it allows the sports governing body to control and limit all testing to a controlled environment, so none of this ambiguity starts to creep in around shake down and demonstration days. But most importantly it allows the fans a chance to see the cars on track a lot more than they currently do.
Sounds good to me.
You can follow Jason Bright and Garth Tander on Twitter.