DR: More races, less tests

Despite the F1 calendar growing from 16 to 18 races, BAR boss David Richards thinks that there should be more races with less testing

"It's farcical that we do all this testing with nobody there," Richards said ahead of the new season's first race in Australia. "I've been down at a cold day in Barcelona with a couple of Spaniards in the crowd waving a Colombian flag and nobody else in sight.

"There clearly is a physical constraint but you can re-organise yourself to do anything. How many races does NASCAR do? Thirty-six? And that becomes a part of their style of doing things. If you are stuck in a fixed regime then you will never change, but if you start from the premise of what does this business need, then it needs more events and to go more global."

Others have argued that a significant schedule increase is too punishing on team personnel and would require separate crews.

"It depends on how you do it," Richards counters. "The way we do things at the moment, the amount of testing, all the rigmarole around a weekend, it's pretty heavy going. But if the weekend was more compact, we didn't run on Fridays, we came in on a Saturday morning and did back-to-back races sometimes, it wouldn't be unreasonable to do extra events.

"We want better value for the people who put money into our teams. Better value as against other sporting events or buying TV or newspaper advertising. Cut the testing and let's do more racing for the same money.

Interestingly, Richards does not subscribe to the view that an increase in computer simulation and rig testing that would accompany reduced track time, would be harmful for the sport.

"Another factor being dismissed is that when we go testing, maybe for three days at Barcelona, it is a truism that it is the cheapest way of making our car go faster. There's no question. But it is a very narrow area of knowledge, which impacts on our team, our car and how we make it work. It doesn't benefit anyone else.

"If we stopped that testing, the argument is that we will go to more simulation and more computerised work and rig testing. But, I believe that type of testing has more proper value to our technical partners, such as Honda and Michelin. So I think going that route would have other benefits. It's in our own hands. We can do something about it."