Hi, we all know the restrictions on F1 testing. IMO I think it also have the impact of the field quality in the upcoming years, with no testing drivers like Alguersauri will emerge.

Remember last generation that were abe to test was Vettel-Kubica-Kovalainen-Hamiton (those who emerged in 2007) all that came after that time are in deep trouble. Its the lack of testing, right?

discuss

It's deeper than that - it's the lack of basic experience. Jaime Alguersuari was drafted into the team halfway through the WSR season when most drivers go though several more championships. The lack of testing hurts, but it's not the main problem. Plus, there are ways around the testing ban that are being explored; only certain drivers - those with a limited nubmer of starts - will be able to test at Jerez on Tuesday. Once the New Year comes around, the testing restrictions will be lifted and all the regular drivers will be able to test. The likes of Grojsean and Alguersuari were hurt because they were brought in mid-season.

Hystory has shown again and again that picking up talent is not as simple as signing feeder series champions.
The lack of testing can isn't helpful at all in this regard.

but how do you explain fruitfull 2007 (Hamilton,Vettel,Kubica (late2006) and the drought that came afterwards in 2008 and 2009 in particular

Not every year can result in superstars being brought into the sport. Before 2007, how many years were there with no significant driver introductions? Who came in in 2003 that was super special? 2004? 2005?

You never get an elite class of rookies every single season; usually there is a changing of the guard every 5/6 years. At the moment we are in the lull between generations of driver. For example in 2001 the rookie crop included Kimi, JPM and Alonso; in 2006/07 we had Hamilton, Kubica, Vettel etc. At the moment there is a shortage of exceptional talent in the junior categories (with the possible exception of Hulkenberg) which is why we are seeing the same old faces trundling around in F3 or GP2 for multiple seasons.

Maybe the teams should be allocated a certain ammount of testing days relating to the previous years final standings. New teams should be able to do more testing with a certain ammount of drivers and the teams finishing 1st to 5th getting less and only using the nominated 3rd and test drivers. All is fair in love and war....

The main reason testing was axed was to cut down on costs, particularly the coss of getting to a venue. Bernie Ecclestone has suggested that teams could do testing on the Monday after a race since they are already in place. The teams nominate which events they will do Monday testing at - they only get a handful of races to do it at - and they get to do some testin. Not as much as before, but not so little that their drivers are totally inexperienced.

It's not a bad idea.

Not a bad idea at all.

Biggest issue I see is that teams are already strapped on engines, so unless they allowed the teams to run 'test-only' engines outside of their allocated 8 per season(which would raise costs, albeit only slightly), you wouldn't get the teams really wanting to test.

engines are capped until 2012, so after that could be interesting on the engine front.

I disagree with the basic premise. It's well and good highlighting Alguersauri, but you seem to have forgotten that he was drafted in to replace someone who had had the benefit of testing yet was considered to be underperforming.

Over the years there have been any number of poor drivers come and go even with testing. A new super talent doesnt normally appear every year, and I don't believe the lack of testing will change that.

Kobayashi - no testing, poor GP2 results, points in second race, fully competent F1 driver

It is Alguersauri who is the problem ;), better talents like Kobayashi need to be brought in and such drivers are fully competent, point scoring, team-mate beating, mistake-free drivers IMMEDIATELY:up:

More quality rookies needed, not Red Bull F3 drivers (from second-rate F3 series like the British one at that, not the euro series!)...

F1 earns the FIA hundreds of millions in profit, and billions for the commercial holders yet they can't organise and pay for regular track testing for the teams? It's all completely broken and since the breakaway has been averted is not going to be fixed any time soon unfortunately.

Indeed.

Over the last two decades we've had a bit of a pattern in terms of influential driver influx too:

1991 - Schumacher and Hakkinen
2001 - Raikkonen, Aonso and Montoya

1996/1997 - Villenueve, Fisichella, Trulli, Schumacher R
2007 - Hamilton. Kubica, Vettel

The likes of Kobayashi and Hulkenberg look very promising but time will tell.

Regardless of whether talentless or incompetent drivers are brought in F1, I think they should be given the best possible chance to succeed with adequate testing before they are thrown out into the gutter.

How about a test car? Leave the race cars alone and use a test car to develop drivers and cars on those Mondays.

Hey Tufty, what brings you over here? Same fate as me and Seanspeed

Welcome.

then theres the transport cost of the extra car, but thats not much comparitivly

teams could bring the test car instead of the spare bare bones chassis and boxes of bits they do now tho..

id be interested in teams testing at circuits before the gp but on national or club configorations

Crap.

Don't you remember what Vettel did when he was thrown to a BMW random races before he got a permanent seat? However, nobody doubd now that he is a talent.

Alguersuari will prove you wrong next season ;)

Did you not see Kobayashi? ( or however you spell his name ). He beat his experienced teammate Trulli and has done amazing defensive and offensive driving against WDC Jenson

Real talents don't need testing.

- Ayrton Senna in his first attempt driving a F1 car immediately destroyed the regular F1 drivers Williams had employed and this was from a guy that has been driving only F3 cars.
- MS came into F1 also with no testing and he did fine, being able to match Piquet ( his dad, not Nelson )
- Vettel pretty much dominated practise sessions at BMW ( ok, it was only practise but he still was not slow )

There are probably more examples

Counterpoint: Romain Grosjean - excellent GP2 results in a top team, including eight victories, six podiums, a GP2 Asia title and Renault test driver ... spent most of his F1 career pointing the way he had just come.

Counterpoint: Giorgio Pantano - 2008 GP2 champion with nine victories to his name. Finished third in 2007 and in 2003 F3000 championship (as well as second in 2002). Was not given a Formula One seat for 2009.

Counterpoint: Nelson Piquet, Jnr. - second in GP2 series in only his second year. Five victories, eight podiums to his name, also a Renult test driver. We all know how this one ended.

As Martin Brundle pointed out during the Abu Dhabi race, previous results don't matter much if you can't hold your wad. It's easy to point to Kamui Kobayashi and compare him to Alguersuari as proof of the need for testing, but the sheer volume of drivers who cannot stand on their own feet with or without testing makes it negligible. It's more important to find a driver who will thrive in the pressure-cooker environment than to find one with a lot of good results in previous championships. Previous results are certainly a starting point, but if they can't stand on their own, it all amounts to nothing. From what we've seen so far - though I think two races is far too few to be able to judge a driver's ability unless he's absolutely hideous at it like Luca Badoer - Kobayashi has what the Grosjeans and Alguersuaris of the grid haven't shown just yet (though in Alguersuari's defence, his car in particular is hopelessly unreliable; three of his retirements came from mechanical failure, and while he was to blame for his accident at Suzuka, anyone would have crashed in the Spa melee). But Kobayashi isn't someone you can build an argument on for re-introducing testing.

Pantano sucked in F1. Probably that's why he wasn't given an other chance

edit: It also helps to be part of a junior development program also or drive for a GP2/F3000 team with F1 connections ( the old F3000 teams were owned by F1 teams like Minardi and Mclaren )

I'm aware of that. I'm also aware he was driving a 2004 Jordan, one of EJ's most uncompetitive cars.

Then in F1 you end up with a huge gulf between the "real" talents and crap drivers, and with nothing in between. We're already heading in that direction.

Sure Kobayashi is an aggressive driver, to the point of being dangerous. He was weaving all over the place that's why it was so difficult to overtake him. He also completely took out Nakajima with a dangerous maneuver. It's unbelievable that the stewards didn't even bother to investigate that. If anyone else had done that, they would have gotten a penalty and they certainly wouldn't be considered a hero.

In Brazil, Button put three and a half seconds on Kobayashi on the lap he got past the Toyota driver. Three and a half seconds. No, is that really defensive driving, or is it just being slow?

And in Abu Dhabi, Kobayashi got Button on the lap the World Champion came out of the pits. Button was fuelled heavily and had green rubber on a circuit that was notable for the fact that it took several laps for tyres to come up to temperature. Kobayashi was at the end of his stint, with a light fuel load and decent tyres. I could have passed Button.

I might add that in both races, Kobayashi was dangerous. He proved as much in Brazil when he took Nakajima out of the race, while in Abu Dhabi he came very close to collecting Button at the hairpin when any other driver would have known to wait or the straight to take him.

Kobayashi is over-rated. He's not untalented, but people put too much store in his "abilities" in two races, which came abut in fairly exceptional circumstances - in a striaght fight, Kobayashi would have been destroyed. I don't deny that he's talented, but I find it odd that people didn't go this gooey over Lewis Hamilton on his debut, and Hamilton was much stronger. After all, he passed the reigning World Champion in the first corner of his first race, and Alonso is not someone who gives ground willingly. I think Kobayashi is likely to struggle in the 2010 season, and I think you're all going to be disappointed because you've made him out to be something he isn't.

And for the record, it's not difficult to beat Trulli.

I have an idea that I was talking about to my dad yesterday.

Each team should run 3 drivers on the Friday of the race weekends, two race drivers and the reserve driver. The reserve driver does both practice sessions and the two race drivers do one session each.

The idea is that each team has a reserve driver that has experience with the car so that they aren't hopeless like Badoer if they are needed to replace one of the race drivers for the rest of the weekend.

There would still be two cars per team each practice session, just one extra driver is used.

For example, Ferrari would run Alonso and Fisichella in one session on the Friday, and in the other session they would run Massa and Fisichella.

I agree with that idea, also Monday testing proposed by Bernie could be a good showcase to reserve drivers.

There were spaces in decent cars or in the case of Kubica and Vettel they signed for unfavored teams and shone in cars that improved dramatically relative to the opposition.

Lets not forget that in this period, the gap between the front and back of the grid has shrunk massively in terms of pure time gap. This means that drivers rocking around in 16th are doing things that would have been top-10 a few years back. Based on results in past categories, the idea that Hamilton and Vettel are gods and Sutil is an also-ran isn't really a fair assessment of the drivers ability.

Ben

I think the testing ban shows one of the big problems with F1 and how FIA is governing it.

The previous unrestricted testing had to be restricted because it just cost way too much to be sustainable. But to go from completely free test as much as you want to a complete testing ban is in my opinion going from one extreme to another.

A better solution would have been a limited number of test days during the season + a certain number of rookie test days where drivers who have not previously raced in F1 is allowed to test. This should also be tied in with the race weekends so there can be more on-track driving during Fridays with new drivers.

hmm, we had 3 drivers parachuted in this season, and one has turned out tobe someone you atleast want to watch (kobi) other too are abit average/poor

would it be much different with testing ?

kobi impressed alot of people because he is a racer, and basicaly outraced a few established names .

There's nothing stopping them from doing this. But there's no incentive, when the lack of testing in-between any races means these Friday sessions are absolutely crucial for allowing the race drivers to work on the setup of the car and to test out any changes and how they like it. There's just no time for dilly-dallying anymore.

And unless that test driver is using one of the race cars(which might not go down well with who's ever seat it really is), they'd have to be allowed in the regs to use a 3rd car, which goes against their 'cost savings' idea of not having 3rd cars anymore. Its a stupid rule, I know, but its one that would need to be overcome.

Its really funny, cuz he was not known for being a 'racer' in GP2. He could be very quick some days, but when it came to actually battling with other drivers, he often fell short. I remember in the GP2 Asia series, he would do great at leading a race from the front, but it was his teammate, D'Ambrosio, who was actually capable of fighting through the field when needed, while Kobayashi often got stuck(though he did have a great race passing Nico Hulkenberg for the win at Bahrain(I think)).

didnt know that , i dont follow gp2 anymore, or any non premiere series really :x

personaly i think f1 drivers are quite poor at actully racing, as its quite a rare accurance... out of practise

Sounds quite presumptuous to me.

It has nothing to do with the drivers, but with the technical and sporting regulations in F1. In short - the cars.

Surely drivers can learn as much using the simulator at the factory as they can gathering up track miles

The reason Hamilton got up to scratch so fast in 2007 at McLaren was the incredible amount of time he had spent on simulator

I meant that it should be made a rule that teams have to run their reserve driver in both the practice sessions on Friday.

With this rule, each race driver would lose 90 minutes on the Friday, but they get some of that time back by increasing Saturday practice or adding an extra practice session.

A 3rd car would be used by the reserve driver and their job would be to test new components for the team, and to gain experience with the car and the circuits so that if they are needed to replace one of the race drivers, they will be able to do a better job than what Badoer or Grosjean did this year.

i'd say Fisichella and Badoer had tested quite a lot in their career, yet they were totally helpless in Ferrari.

If they were to give in on the 3rd car rule, I think I'd prefer to see a Monday test session just for test/reserve drivers. This way, the weekend practice schedule doesn't get all tightened up(by adding practice sessions or lengthening them), the race drivers ensure that they get equal time in the car(it would be pretty unfair if a certain race driver got ideal conditions in HIS session, but the other driver got rained out or something), and the teams can simultaneously focus on development of the car along with the development of the driver without any 'stress' to maybe use the test driver as a workhorse for trying to figure out something for the race.

It seems to me that the newer drivers are better in wheel to wheel racing than been in f1 for ages drivers. how good where say DC and fisi, compaired to say, kobashi?

Lets not take this overboard now. Kobayashi did very well. He defended fairly good against Button in one race, and then passed him cleanly in another. But lets analyze this for a second:

- How hard is it to hold up somebody in F1 these days? Not very. The cars already make it pretty difficult on their own.

- When Kobayashi passed Button, they were on differing fuel strategies at the time and Kobayashi was much lighter.

What Kobayashi did was impressive because he's a rookie. Had that been anybody else on the field, it wouldn't have been nearly as noticed or talked about.

nah it was exciting whoever was involved, imo

It was exciting, sure, but it wasn't something overly special that we dont ever see by these 'veteran' drivers who you say dont know how to race anymore.

To me, the battle between Webber and Button at the end of the race was much more 'exciting', but Kobayashi's battle is considered more impressive cuz he's a rookie.

I'm tellin ya, you may not realize it, but what Kobayashi did wasn't something special relative to what we normally see in F1. It was just special for a rookie.

Kobayashi had loads of testing pre-season.

Lewis Hamilton’s innovative F1 training programme will change the sport, says robert matthews

Lewis Hamilton's victory at yesterday's Canadian Grand Prix adds yet another superlative to his unparalleled F1 career. Already the first driver to get podium finishes in all his races, and the youngest to lead the drivers' championship, he is now the first and youngest to combine those with an outright win.

But Hamilton's success is more than a collection of stats. It marks the dawn of a new era in F1, where raw driving talent is turbo-charged by the appliance of science.

For decades, racing teams have lavished state-of-the-art technology on the performance of the car, and then put their trust in a tiny cadre of humans they hope will drive the result to victory. McLaren has changed all that with its training of its 22-year old wunderkind.

Hamilton has undergone an unprecedented regime at McLaren's Woking headquarters, masterminded by Dr Kerry Spackman, a New Zealand-born neuroscientist hired by McLaren to turn their exceptionally talented English driver into a race-winning machine.

A major part of Spackman's approach is the intensive use of computer simulators, which expose Hamilton to every twist, turn and eventuality of a race until dealing with them is utterly instinctive. Nothing very radical there, of course: Nasa did precisely the same with its astronauts more than 40 years ago. But Spackman goes much further, applying insights from neuroscience and psychology to uncover the foibles of Hamilton's technique and mindset, and bring them under control. The result is a driver who combines the standard skill-set of focus and controlled aggression with relentless consistency.

Some will lament this clinical approach to a sport once dominated by God-given talents like Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost. Too bad: where McLaren has led, the rest have no choice but to follow.

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/7254,news-co...ton-was-trained

I think Lewis is just naturally gifted. Sure, these simulators may have reinforced that talent and all, but I dont think it was *the* difference. I dont think you could have taken Sebastien Buemi, put him through the same training and have gotten the same results.

Maybe not but I definitely think if the same techniques were applied to other drivers it would in some way compensate for the lack of on track testing