Carlos Sainz Jnr has called on Formula 1 to ease its tight restrictions on track testing by limiting how much teams can use their simulators.
F1’s rules permit teams a single, three-day pre-season test session using their current cars. They are allowed to run older chassis under the Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) regulations, but this is also subject to mileage limits for the first time this year.
Sainz, who has joined Williams from Ferrari this year, said his day-and-a-half’s running in the FW47 was insufficient.
“It feels weird that I got a day and a half and now I need to go racing,” he said. “It feels not enough, it feels very little. Ridiculously little, the amount of time that we get into our cars before going to a race.”
He said the limits on testing are particularly tough on F1’s rookies. Six drivers will start their first full seasons in Melbourne later this month.
“I’m just obviously wishing them all the best and understanding a bit their frustration with testing, because even though I’m obviously no rookie, that day-and-a-half of testing I think is frustrating for me too but I cannot imagine [how it is] for a rookie. I understand how difficult that makes things and how tricky the start of the season will be for some of these guys.
“If you could get that TPC car [running] also, that is relevant and that can still help a lot, but experience is experience and you only gain that on-track with a real car that you are going to drive that the year.”
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While track testing is strictly limited, teams can run their simulators as much as they like, and often use them during grand prix weekends to conduct simultaneous tests using live track data. But Sainz, who became a director of the Grand Prix Drivers Association last month, believes simulators are less useful than real-world testing and teams should have the choice between how much of the two they can do.
“I think F1, if I’m honest, could do a bit of an effort in trying to do a better job in how we go testing,” he said. “You have a lot of teams spending infinite amounts of money in simulators, to have drivers flying to the UK from Monaco to go to the simulator, and I don’t understand why we get three days of testing when all that money could be invested into – I don’t know – eight days of testing.
“I’m not asking for too much. Eight, 10 days where every team picks their places to test. It’s nice to have a collective test, I think it should stay, but my proposal would be to put in the budget cap the number of [test] days, put in the budget cap the simulator also, and see where the teams want to spend their money, if it’s in the sim or if it’s in 10 testing days.
“Rookies would benefit and I think F1 teams would benefit because even though the simulators are good, they are not as good as some of the engineers or people tend to believe they are. So I would always choose testing and for [the rookies] also than to go into a simulator.”
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