Reading anything into Formula One’s first testing session is a dangerous game – unless a radical interpretation of the rules has bestowed an obvious advantage, such as Jenson Button’s Brawn team enjoyed in 2009 – but there is one thing that may become clear in Barcelona on Monday, and it could be crucial to the success of the season.
Regulation changes have emphasised downforce and increasing speeds. It seems to have worked inasmuch as the cars will be quicker but the amount of turbulence they produce in their wake will also be greater. This makes overtaking difficult and, while lap times may fall, it will not be particularly visible to fans watching on television but a lack of passing will be. It is a huge potential problem for the sport’s reboot.
Lewis Hamilton expressed concern last year that adding aero was a big mistake for F1 and he returned to the topic last week. He was outspoken and seemingly increasingly convinced the smooth lines and fast times were going to make for ugly racing. Only a day later at the launch of the Mercedes W08, a car he thinks looks magnificent at least, Hamilton was sufficiently perturbed to bring it up again.
“Feedback from the engineers is that overtaking will be worse,” the three-times world champion, said. “The dirty air is far more powerful and more turbulent than it has been in the past. We’ll find out at the first test. I hope it’s better but don’t hold your breath.”
Others have been more circumspect than Hamilton. Bob Bell, Renault’s technical director, does not believe conclusions can be drawn at this stage. “We know very little about how regs will affect overtaking,” he said at the Renault launch. “Elements should make it better, we have more mechanical grip which should allow for greater opportunities to find a way around someone through corners but we have more aerodynamics so there is the potential to lose some of that performance. Where the balance lies nobody knows.”
Fernando Alonso further complicated matters at the launch of the McLaren MCL32 on Friday. He conceded cars racing closer together would be an issue. “If you think the cars have more downforce and big tyres that create more turbulence and more dirty air to the car behind, it is true it will be more difficult to follow the cars but this is just a theory we have now,” he said.
He went on to point out the fatter and supposedly more durable tyres supplied by Pirelli would also be telling. “The biggest factor previously for overtaking was tyre performance,” he said. “The tyres will dominate how much overtaking we will see. In a three-to-four-stop race there will be a lot of overtaking but in a one-stop it will be harder.”
The tyres will also be on show at the Circuit de Catalunya but key to the issue of turbulence is the balance of the car. They will be tougher, more physical to drive and, as Bell puts it, on a knife edge. How that balance changes when the cars are running line astern is what Barcelona should reveal.
Drivers will not be looking to overtake but will inevitably find themselves behind one another on the track – providing them with a feel for it and engineers with data of how performance is affected. Some teams are likely even to run deliberately close to other cars to gauge it.
The first test will be a mixture of cards held close to chests, reliability testing and some sandbagging, the usual smoke and mirrors. But one thing that should become plain is just what lies in the wake of these new cars and of the much-touted rule changes.
