The loophole that makes ageing F1 'rookies' so important

Fielding a 32-year-old who has been driving Formula 1 cars for a decade may seem like an unfair interpretation of the rule demanding teams give track time to "rookies" during testing.

However, McLaren's decision to give Oliver Turvey half a day of running in the post-Spanish Grand Prix test is rooted in important logic that extends beyond simply satisfying their requirement to use a driver who has not started more than two grands prix for half of its testing programme.

The same goes for Racing Point calling upon 28-year-old Nick Yelloly and giving the sportscar driver his first F1 experience in four years.

First of all, it is useful for such teams to be able bank on an experienced pair of hands for precious in-season track time.

A steady option who can get up to speed quickly and provide good feedback is vital given teams only have four days of testing once the season begins, and a fresh view on the car is beneficial too. Several teams have discovered the potential consequences of running an inexperienced driver, with Alfa Romeo the latest team to watch a debutant - in this case, Callum Ilott - suffer a big crash.

Any driver can crash, and inexperience may well have played no part in Ilott's shunt, but if a team can mitigate against that potential by choosing a safe option, it most likely will.

Secondly, and more significant for the likes of McLaren and Racing Point this week, it is a golden opportunity to put their development drivers - those who are paid to work on the simulator to help car development and set-up work - to use in the real world.

That will also be of benefit to Ferrari which, instead of giving Mick Schumacher a second day in the car, called upon Antonio Fuoco for the first time in three seasons - despite the Formula 2 race winner and former team protege no longer being a single-seater racer.

Turvey, Yelloly and Fuoco are not just random ex-hopefuls plucked from recent pages of F1 history to take advantage of a loophole in the rulebook.

F1 teams rely heavily on simulation tools to develop their cars, but a driver who spends 50 days or more working with that programme will be of little use - however good they are - if the simulator does not reflect reality.

"Im doing a lot of work back in the simulator, so to get a good feeling for the car that I can then go back and correlate in the simulator and use that for the rest of the season to make progress," said Turvey.

"The cars change in Formula 1, the characteristics change a little bit, and it's important that we capture that because if you don't understand the areas that you need to improve, you can obviously end up not developing in the right way.

"McLaren has always been one of the teams that has used the simulator quite a lot.

"This is my 10th season with the team, I've tested pretty much every year with McLaren, and I think they put an importance on that.

"Giving me half a day in the car today was extremely useful to get this feeling."

One may scoff at that assertion and say Turvey's 52 laps at Barcelona is not much at all.

However, he says that is enough time "to get a good feeling for the car and the balance limitations".

By comparison, Yelloly drove both days of the test for Racing Point and racked up just shy of 200 laps.

His target on day one was aero work and car familiarisation to aid his feeling for what he experiences in the simulator.

On day two, he was assessing long-term aero development and more correlation work - with Racing Point praising him for his accurate feedback and "not putting a foot wrong".

Turvey's responsibilities were similar, providing feedback about the car itself to help the trackside team but knowing he needs to feed back relevant lessons for the simulator at the McLaren factory as well.

Other teams will benefit from similar drivers being used in Spain, such as Haas fielding its own (albeit less experienced) development driver Pietro Fittipaldi, Jack Aitken reprising his Renault testing role and Dan Ticktum getting a second day in the Red Bull.

"I'm doing quite a bit in the simulator always," Aitken said. "It's always valuable, I think more for the sim guys than for me.

"I always try and come back trying to remember as much as I can for them but it's already pretty good so it's probably more for them than for me."

Stipulating the use of so-called rookie drivers does also provide opportunities to those who would be considered a conventional rookie.

Nikita Mazepin (Mercedes), Aitken (Renault), Nicholas Latifi (Williams), Ticktum (Red Bull), Ilott (Alfa Romeo) and Sergio Sette Camara (McLaren) will all probably hold some hope of making it to F1.

However, while the FIA's definition of a rookie simply remains 'a driver who has not started more than two grands prix', teams are presented with a glaring loophole.

That is partly why 2019 F1 debutants George Russell (Mercedes/Williams), Alex Albon (Toro Rosso) and Lando Norris (McLaren) were used during the previous test in Bahrain: they had only just completed their second F1 race, so were still classified as a 'rookie' for testing purposes.

If deemed necessary, this could be solved by an upper age or F1 mileage/experience limit.

Alternatively these teams could just choose not to take advantage of such situations and only ever put an F2 or F3 driver in their car.

However, when certain anomalies satisfy the rules as written, and the benefits of using them are so clear, the decision to use such drivers must be an easy one.