Shafto wrote:i am sure it has been covered, but it is an easy question.
Do the teams only test with one car and switch out the seats for each driver? Does this minimize the chances of wrecking two cars instead of one?
Or do they use two cars?
Before the 2009 season, theam were allowed 2 cars in pre-season, one car in-season and 2 cars post season. But wernt allowed to do more than 30,000km of testing each year. But with someone at the FIA and their wisdon thought they should only do single car teast from 2009 onward before the season, no mid season and single car post season tests. Call it cost cutting.
To answer the question, it was once 2, but is now one car. However, early in the test callender, teams generally only use one car and change it for each driver overnight. But once what would have taken overnight now takes roughly 45 mins to do as the teams have gottn it down to less than an hour to change the setup over for a driver to get his baseline, but still takes an hour or so to get nailed on his particular liking of setup.
The thing is that now that many teams have got their second chassis, or third chassis in the case of Ferarri, Renault and posibly McLaren and Mercedes, they will have 2 cars there for each driver.
Personally, id like to see 21 days pre season testing. Three, 3-day tests and three, 4-day tests. But with teams being allowed to use up to 2 cars if they have them avalable. But making it that each driver is allowed no more than 12 days test time in a car, thus getting test/reserve drivers in the picture and posibly a few development drivers as well. By my calculations that would mean that teams would have to have 4 drivers drive their cars before a season. Thats a total of up to 42 days testing before the season, meaning that 3 drivers would get 12 days at the wheel, and one young guy would get 6 days at the wheel. Meaning that a Badoer/Grosjean situation could be better avoided before the season start.
Personally, id like to see the test callender like this:
Test 1: Valencia (3 day)
Test 2: Paul Ricard (3 Day)
Test 3: Portamao (3 Day)
Test 4: Jerez (4 Day)
Test 5: Aragon (4 Day)
Test 6: Barcelona (4 Day)
Anyways, some visual data; distance after Test 4, Day 2:
Blue Line: Distance accross all tests
Green Line: Laps accross all tests