The Friday "Test" Sessions: Art Imitating Life

The 2009 season has brought about quite a few surprises to the previously almost predictable results.  Certainly Vettel dominating Monza in 2008 was unforeseen, however over the last few seasons the championship was dominated by two teams, and in the last decade Ferrari was either winning or challenging for the championship.

The absence of a championship winning or even race leading Ferrari, McLaren’s inconsistency, Renault’s failures, and Red Bull’s incredible development and on track speed, and Brawn’s spectacular consistency and superior performance, have been responsible for a growth in Formula 1 fan base.

What Lewis Hamilton’s presence in the sport has done in the last two years has been built on by Brawn GP’s resurgence. 

Brawn’s elevation in the championship and the top teams’ demotion has benefited the sport in viewer ship numbers, and because of the support of Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, and Sauber, fans their demotion from the top spots of the F1 grid has not resulted in loss of that particular fan base.

F1s decision to make their cars “clean” by doing away with aerodynamic devices, addition of a snowplough like front wing, and narrow yet tall rear wing, adaptation of common devices, and many other changes in the sport have resulted in the current F1 championship standing. 

The championship leaders of this season are different than those of years past, and with each week it becomes absolutely obvious that none of the big three will win the constructor championship.  While the leaders are different the situation is a repeat of seasons gone by.

At the time that Ross Brawn, the current Brawn GP team owner, was part of Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, fans were leaving F1 behind and calling the sport boring simply because of the team’s incredible dominance. 

That dominance has yet again been repeated, and what FIA has tried to achieve by introducing new rules and regulations pertaining to car design, has been done away by the rules and regulations of the 2009 season.

F1 has tried to become far more popular, while at the same time becoming far less costly; both can perhaps be achieved in the long run, but the 2009 season is demonstrating that the two ideas do not go hand in hand.

F1 has always been considered the pinnacle of engineering, and in the last few years it has attempted to maintain that position in the racing world while lowering the operating costs.  Rules introduced for the 2009 season and proposed for the subsequent seasons were written in to try and start a process of bringing the costs of F1 down.  

Among those rules is rule 22.1.b, “no competitor may carry out more than 15,000km of track testing during a calendar year,” and 22.1.c, “no track testing may take place between the start of the week preceding the first Event of the Championship and 31 December of the same year.” 

The rules were introduced to help F1 become much more economical, and to create a very competitive atmosphere. 

The teams agreed to the implementation of the rules, and in the beginning of the season their introduction was not questioned.  Testing, however, has been an integral part of the actual sport, and its presence in F1 guaranteed that if engineers of a specific F1 car had chosen to follow the “wrong” design avenue those “errors” could be reversed.

Following a different avenue of design can mean a difference between winning a championship and losing it, and while it is possible to narrow the gaps between those two types of teams, an F1 team needs some kind of “laboratory” or testing ground.   

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has been used for quite some time, but this technological solution can not replicate exactly how a specific design solution on a car will affect the car’s performance, and neither can computer simulations, or rolling roads.  In reality running actual tests on the cars at tracks can not be replaced.

Yes the tests are expensive, and yes each Grand Prix weekend features several practice sessions that can be used as actual test sessions, but a team can not really run lap after lap featuring new and different innovation with hopes that proper data will be collected to support the introduction of a specific new design solution. 

Practice sessions at these races are run to prepare the car for that very race, not for the next few grand prix. 

F1 teams need test sessions to give young talent an opportunity to gain valuable experience; more importantly they need test sessions throughout the season to help bridge the gap between the front runners and those in the back. 

Offering teams the opportunity to run cars with new innovations would help a team like Renault to figure out if the “trick-diffuser” will work before transporting it to the race where it fails and causes sufficient damage to the car on a Friday session and hence prevent the team from giving Fernando Alonso the opportunity to prepare his car for the Qualifying session and race.

Taking Fernando Alonso out of the equation for the Friday session lowers Renault’s exposure, hence affecting fan presence in the stands, and sponsors do not have an opportunity to have their advertisement presented, hence resulting in potential income loss. 

The lack of an opportunity to test the introduction of new items prior to a grand prix also affects the level of competition and viewer ship figures.  Brawn GP and Red Bull have designed superior cars to really anyone on the grid; matching their performance is possible and would be in the best interests of the sport. 

While some hardcore fans will continue watching the sport even after the championship is decided just past midseason, quiet a lot of fans will hardly see the point of rising each morning to watch yet another blow-out victory. 

If there is no possibility of matching the performances of the top two teams then the rest will no longer try to win and concentrating their development efforts on the 2010 car.  The championship, hence, will become a two horse race and second place is the first of the losers.

Had the test rule not been written in F1 would still be costly, however it is possible that by race two or three Brawn GP would be enjoying healthy competition from the rest.  IT is possible that Brawn GP, too, would make further steps in their development and the season would look identical to what it is right now.

It is not possible to predict the outcome should the rules look different; however as seen in seasons past it is quite possible that Ferrari, McLaren, BMW, Toyota, Williams could indeed be fighting for podiums and not just the rare points. 

The competition character of the 2009 season can not be salvaged at this point, but the FIA needs to seriously consider what decision is both proper and beneficial to the existence and success of its flagship brand. 

Sometimes spending more money on a larger carton at the super market can be more beneficial in the long run.  With the upcoming 2010 season the FIA should perhaps re-write some of those articles, and if indeed the FOTA creates a breakaway series of their own they can learn from the FIA’s mistakes. 

Some people say that are imitates life.  The unforeseen impact of FIA’s decision to abandon specific rules on F1, such as mid season testing, mirrors the impact of abandoning practice sessions on the outcome of actual races.