One aspect of the reduction in testing is that it forces teams to run their race drivers rather than sharing the love around. Here are some of the drivers you might had forgotten got a chance to test in F1, starting with Nathanael Berthon aboard the HRT at Yas Marina in 2011. The Frenchman went on to become a race-winner in WTCR and finished fourth at Le Mans in 2022.
Whatever your opinions of testing, here's the reminder that its purpose isn't supposed to be entertainment but to help the teams prepare for the new season. But with far less of it than in previous years, what do teams loose (and gain) from the reduction? For Plus subscribers, former McLaren, Jordan, Sauber and Renault F1 engineer Tim Wright tackles the question here.
It would be remiss of us not to share one last Minardi picture from another forgotten F1 testing venue. Here's Katherine Legge, fresh from a race-winning season in Toyota Atlantic that earned her a Champ Car drive for 2006, tackling the Vallelunga circuit in the final Minardi F1 car, PS05, in November 2005.
Matt Kew tells us that when the session is resumed, it will run until 19:00 local time - the same time it was scheduled to conclude, but with no lunch break.
Misano used to be a fairly popular venue for Italian teams to test at. Here's Will Davison, the two-time Bathurst 1000 winner, in action for Minardi in 2004.
There's plenty of noise coming out of the Alpine garage as it fires up the engine, but no sign of this red flag period ending any time soon unfortunately.
Years after F1 last visited Magny-Cours for the French GP in 2008, F1 continued to visit the billard-smooth track. Here's Brendon Hartley in action for Mercedes at the in-season young driver test in 2012. Now a three-time Le Mans winner, Hartley would of course race in F1 for Toro Rosso in 2017-18.
Lando Norris's Gil de Ferran tribute helmet has been mentioned plenty of times during the test so far. Here's the man himself in action at Estoril in 1993, driving for Footwork. Also sharing the car at the former Portuguese GP venue was a young Jos Verstappen, who would be catapulted into a Benetton seat the following year. The late Andy Hallbery was there for Autosport, and here's what he wrote.
Formula 3000 rookie Gil de Ferran (BRA) tests the Footwork FA14.
Now better known as Formula E's pre-season test venue in recent years, Valencia is another Spanish track that F1 teams frequented on a regular basis in the winter months. Pictured is Townsend Bell making his test debut for Jaguar, a story the former IndyCar racer recounted to Autosport in 2021.
Townsend Bell (USA) makes his F1 debut with Jaguar.Formula One Testing
Naturally it makes sense from a logistics standpoint to hold testing at the same venue as the first race. But during the stoppage, let's look at some of the other F1 circuits that have been testing staples in the past. First off Jerez - not a regular race venue, but one drivers love. Former Renault tester Franck Montagny even rates it as his favourite track!
While we're in this stoppage, how about a bit of trackside insight from Alex Kalinauckas? He was out all day yesterday watching the cars, observing how the new 2024 machines are handling in places the championship’s TV cameras can’t spot. At Red Bull, things appear very familiar, but there’s a few surprises elsewhere. Plus subscribers can read the full feature here.
This is all rather frustrating for the teams, but nothing very much that they can do about it. Carlos Sainz remains sat stoically in his Ferrari cockpit.
Using the phrase tinkering time does rather underplay what happens in an F1 garage, it must be said. It's hardly Scrapheap Challenge (a programme this commenter's three-year-old has recently taken to).
Stroll, Ocon and Bottas have been out of the pits and back in again like yo-yos without doing a representative time. Ocon duly returns to the pits once more and is wheeled back into the garage for more tinkering time. It's not all glamour, this testing lark, you know.
George Russell has just come in after a short stint with the aero rakes, and it's given us a chance to snap a close-up of THAT front wing. Confirms that the wing tip is completely exposed, so they've done well with their interpretation of the rules to get that through.
He's going rather quickly, the Briton, and clocks a 1m32.108s with the fastest middle sector to date. It's not enough to dislodge Sainz from the top spot though, and he remains second for now.
It's interesting that teams decide to put their flow-vis in different places. Norris's McLaren has it smeared over the right-hand side of the rear wing.
One wonders just how much carrying all that scaffolding, for want of a better phrase, actually is detrimental to performance. Surely it adds extra weight in undesirable places for efficiency, but it would be fascinating to know just how much - depending on placement and size - they slow things down. There's a reason teams don't race with them, after all.
I'm in the pitlane, and we've just watched Perez come in. He got out of the car, jacked up, and the mechanics are starting to have a look at the floor. Certainly a little bit of work going on here at the Red Bull garage.
There's a healthy amount of lurid yellow flow-vis on the right-hand front corner of Albon's Williams, which has set the third fastest time so far behind Sainz and Norris.
No hanging around on his outlap from Perez, who storms past Norris and Sainz. Ricciardo and Sainz are, according to the timing screens, the only drivers on the soft tyre with the rest on the medium C3.
