Why F1 testing isn't on TV

Formula 1 testing is boring. Lewis Hamilton said so.

"I would be lying if I said I was extremely excited," he said at the end of the second day of the Jerez test. "It's testing, not the most exciting period for any racing driver... want to race."

As an AUTOSPORT reader, it's safe to assume you are a devotee of motorsport and aghast at such a sentiment. But there is something to be said for it.

After all, testing is very much a process that creates the foundation on which each team builds the season ahead.

Inevitably, everyone wants to know the relative pace of the cars. But the teams have no interest in doing that.

Often the word 'sandbagging' is used. But that's a dangerous word. Mercedes and Williams, for example, were not 'hiding' their true pace...they were just getting on with the work they needed to do.

So the biggest problem testing has is that it's not a competition. There is no prize for being fastest, or slowest, and while storylines do start to emerge, the headline laptimes are worth very little.

A rare moment of wheel-to-wheel running during testing at Jerez © LAT

It's fascinating to see the brand new cars. To be at the test for all four days and glean a few early signs is a great privilege.

But when people ask why there isn't comprehensive live coverage of testing, the answer is obvious. Very few people would watch it, and a lot of those who did would find it far less interesting than they think.

Each of the four days of testing consisted of eight hours of cars driving round.

Often there were no cars driving around. Occasionally, a car stopped on the track, and even more rarely someone spun or went off (although this didn't happen enough even to justify more than a 10-second highlights reel).

Once in a while, a flatbed truck was sent out to recover something. Mechanics were sometimes seen shrouding stricken cars to prevent technical details being revealed.

There were times when it rained. And there was a memorable moment late on the last day when a boxy piece of circuit furniture (not exactly sure what) rolled slowly onto the track exiting the final corner and triggered a red flag.

Every now and again the Honda engine, in the garage just below the media centre, fired up. That tended to lead to a flurry of people running to the window.

There was also a power cut, although that was after the end of running on Wednesday, so that was little more than an inconvenience.

Sometimes something really dramatic will happen. In Abu Dhabi a few years ago, a dog was briefly spotted on the track (fortunately Bruno Senna was not testing that day). And last year, the cats got in on the action.

Excitement at tests is often limited to small spins and offs © LAT

The point is that testing doesn't have an ebb and flow like a grand prix weekend. It doesn't build to a crescendo. It's just about 32 hours of track time to be maximised.

It's extremely important for the teams, and there's plenty of interest to be had in following the coverage, be it end-of-day wrap-ups on TV, offering the chance to see the cars on track for the first time for those at home.

There's also a plethora of news to be devoured on the internet, including on this very website, and in print. What's happening is interesting and significant, but to imagine that watching eight hours of it on TV would be gripping is a mistake.

After all, in the UK, Sky Sports F1 committed to some live testing coverage a few years ago, but subsequently dropped it. There will have been a very good reason for that, based on viewing figures.

Yet pre-season testing has sneakily become part of the regular season, like three extra races by way of a prelude.

It's a positive that the circuits are able to welcome fans to the test to see the cars in person. Jerez proved popular with them, particularly on days when Fernando Alonso was running (to use a very loose application of the word) in the McLaren-Honda.

But while hanging around in the pits during the first couple of hours of testing, it was frustrating to see the screens enveloping the cars and blocking the garages.

Just across the start/finish straight, the main grandstand had plenty of fans in it eager to catch a glimpse of the car, but with Ferrari, for example, setting up its screens between the pit box and the pitwall, it meant that fans couldn't even watch the car being wheeled into the garage.

Privacy screens play their part during testing © LAT

That said, if you remember what testing is actually for, you can see where teams are coming from.

"While we are doing this early work, there certainly are things on the car that are not completely obvious and it's just the way we do things that we like to keep from our rivals for a bit longer," said Symonds.

"I strongly approve of the fact that once we go racing we are not allowed to put those screens there. But bear with us a little while we use them during our test..."

The great irony is that, in terms of technical detail of the car, teams will have a vast portfolio of detail images from every rival very rapidly. Sometimes this is called espionage, but that's a misnomer.

What it actually is is taking photographs of other cars! A skilled photographer, of which there are plenty in F1, with good kit can capture extraordinary detail of a car.

After all, senior technical personnel have been known to email pictures to each other, highlighting the latest point of technical interest they have spotted on their car, just to let their rivals know they are watching!

Fans turned out at Jerez to get a first glimpse of the new cars © LAT

In the garage, things are a little harder, so you can understand the reasoning for the screens, and the tendency to shut the door.

But, perversely, it's precisely this secrecy, combined with the fact that there's not television coverage to match that of a grand prix weekend, that makes testing so appealing to everyone.

In a way, it's a throwback to the old days of being a motorsport fan, when you had to wait until your Thursday copy of AUTOSPORT (or, if you were that way inclined, your Wednesday issue of Motoring News) to find out much more than the bare details of the racing.

In this time of blanket coverage, is it such a bad thing to have a period where all you get is snippets of on-track action, photographs, and coverage via such outlets as Sky Sports and AUTOSPORT? After all, our live testing coverage stretched to well over 30,000 words, with news stories and features on top of that.

Sometimes, the reality of something can be far less exciting than the perception.

That's why the way F1 testing is covered is, perversely, a positive for grand prix racing rather than a negative.