Yes, yes, yes, we all smoke the hopium bowl every February in one way or another, because you really can’t call yourself a diehard fan without that yearly hopium toke. I humbly submit, I smoke the bowl most every February to this very day. What can I say? I’m a recovering belief addict. My worst years were 2010 to 2014 when Fred was at Ferrari. I believed all the hype every year that the coming year was the one...alas, we all know how that worked out.
Hopium often results in pools of tears, heaps of disappointment, and teeth-gnashing despair...but such is the life of the diehard F1 fanatic. Cheers, laddies.
This upcoming testing season won’t be my first rodeo, but for many here this may be a new, or relatively new experience. First, my apologies. Second, we only get one February per year, so it takes a while to put some experiential notches in the belt. This will be my 37th offseason watching F1. My humble suggestion is to learn from the mistakes of those who have traversed this minefield before...dose everything with salt, don’t listen to the media, and by all means don’t drink the team principal koolaid.
To begin the therapy, here are some possible hopium offerings from this seasons new dealers. Don’t take the first puff, or you may find yourself falling into a spiral of dependency.
1. The Merc team has been sitting on truckloads of downforce. Truck. Loads. In fact, so much downforce they will have to quietly tone it down. Plus, with the new regs they orchestrated to require a higher ride height, it’s gonna be 2015 all over again. Just you wait. Their biggest problem will be hiding their potential so the FIA won’t mandate regs that upend their advantage. The new unobtanium suspension system they are developing alongside their crack team of race strategists, uglier side pods, and new flex-free floor, Merc will finally redeem the Silver Spatula, and find that missing 10 points of downforce that eluded them all of 2022. Guaranteed. Cash the check. Money’s in the bank. Case closed. If they’re slow they’re sandbagging.
2. With renewed inspiration from the Alonso hire, Stroll will discover another ship of fortune moored in Monaco harbor. Yes, new facilities and AM’s exclusive superhypertyphoidphotonic AI engine mapping & eye watering aerodynamic prowess will result in 50+ more horses, 15+ points of downforce, and race wins...maybe even a championship if the racing gods finally find favor with Fred.
3. Ferrari will finally be able to turn their engine up because they fixed those pesky turbo niggles that cost Shaall and Ferrari their rightful championships last year. Are you still pissed? I am. Did I mention the second they are going to find in unlocked aero performance? Maybe it’s 1.5 seconds...and that’s ON TOP of the turbo fan blade upgrades, home skillet. Shaall will glide to the championship with a power advantage equal to what Lewis enjoyed for years, and with that endless gravy train of updates from Maranello, he will find himself at the sharp end of the sharp end of the sharp end. It’s gonna be beautiful man. Just ride that red lightening Shaall, and call Toto if you need advice about hiding ridiculous advantages.
#Oops
4. Macca will finally resolve their mysterious lack of performance since Ron Dennis and the heart of McLaren were unapologetically sacked. I still question that decision, tbh. Nevertheless, the orange boys actually will fight for not only podiums, but wins. Come on man, you know you’ve smoked that. It’s ok to admit it! You wouldn’t be a McLaren fan if you didn’t believe in miracles.
Wait. Whatever, McLaren’s moment to shine has finally come, and they now have the driver who can get it done. Norris will finally, finally get the car he deserves, move to the sharp end, and take it to RB. If they are slow in testing, they are just sandbagging. 5. Red Bull will finally overcome their cars frustrating obesity epidemic they somehow couldn’t get hold of all 2022, and with their aero genius Newey, his alien tech floor, and an orange bull at the helm, they will unleash the fury come race uno. Anything less, assume they are just sandbagging. 2 second advantage for RB? Sure. Why not. Make it 2.5 brotherhood, and pass me the peace pipe.
Every imaginable promise will be made over February. It happens every year. To avoid the jab reality is more than happy to deliver, learn to stick and move over the course of February. Don’t buy the hype. Don’t believe in miracles. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Feeling surprised feels so much better than feeling disappointed. You’ll enjoy testing so much more if you keep your expectations in check, and simply marvel at the competitive wonder that is F1.
Helpful suggestions to keep in mind during testing:
We don’t know what fuel loads, tire compounds, tire pressures, power unit modes, aero gadgets, illegal add on’s, gear ratios, battery settings, car weight, or ENDLESS other factors that directly effect lap time and perceived performance. Therefore, DO NOT draw any final conclusions from testing times.
Testing lap times are a barometer for consistency, not a determination of speed. Don’t panic if your favorites do not seem fast during testing. Many, many teams run their engine in lower modes as they build reliability, so don’t panic if your favorite car starts sluggish compared to others. There are a myriad of reasons for a team starting slow. Keep the faith. Stay focused. The team likely will work it out with some time.
No matter what anyone says here —including myself in moments of frustration— all teams are smarter than you. All teams know more than you. All teams are wanting to win more than you. Therefore, a car being slow is not due to a lack of effort nor incompetence. It’s a pressure and competition derivative — we all are human and all team members are pushing.
Some teams are simply wealthier and better at managing risk than others, and so expect pecking orders to be similar to last year. Pecking orders typically change slowly. Miracle finds are called miracles because they are rare. Alpine is not going to find 2 seconds. RB is not going to lose 2 seconds. Haas is not going to suddenly challenge for championships, and neither is Alpine or Williams. The sooner these kinds of realities are accepted, and the less your expectation, the less your potential for disappointment.
What should be of much greater concern than testing lap times is the reliability of the car, the consistency of the car, and the drivability of the car. Does it spend all day parked in the garage fixing problem after problem, or all day pounding out lap after lap solving problems? Is it a constant handful the entire test, or does it positively respond to changes made over the event? Is it eating tires or is it the more gentle type? Do the drivers seem genuinely upbeat, or looking like they just ate a plate of bad oysters? Can the team move through smoking problems quickly, or is the car burning day after day after day? These kinds of questions will give you better perspective over media knee jerk reactions, and frustrated one team obsessed F1 Tech contributors.
As Yogi Berra would say it: teams need feedback from completing a lot of laps on track, and the only means to that end is completing a lot of laps on track.
Unreliability, or a low final lap tally by the end of the test, affects the teams ability to get through their testing schedule. Every team comes with a schedule and the more laps they can complete, the more data they can collect, and the better off they will be all season. Testing is mostly for data acquisition, not necessarily finding all kinds of lap time. Like losing time at the beginning of a straight costs the entire straight, losing time in testing costs the entire season, because a lack of data compromises the ultimate potential to be found in the car, and that potential end point begins in February. Like any machine you learn to operate, the better you know it, the faster you can fix and upgrade it.
The importance of correlation:
Being able to get through the daily schedule allows a team to gather on track information so they can then scrutinize what the wind tunnel has been telling them at home with actual track data. Does the simulated data match the track data? This measure is called correlation. Data correlation between track and simulator is very, very important to the development of a car. Correlation problems are one of the biggest concerns for a team because correlation determines accuracy, and therefore how long it takes the engineers to find speed in the car. Time is something teams cannot buy, so the quicker they can correlate simulated data with track data, the faster the car can get faster. It all starts with track time.
Fast cars at the beginning of the season only remain fast if they keep developing, and development time is often contingent on correlation accuracy. Every team deals with this and some better than others. A lot depends on the quality of home testing facilities, technical resources, overall build control, and the ingenuity of in house engineers. These parameters are often financially driven and this is why larger teams are typically at the sharp end. They have more resources to find creative ways to circumvent budget caps and bend rules — but that’s a can of worms I’m not going to open in this post!! lol.
Testing renders correlation problems by noting how the car responds to the parts engineers design, build, and attach to the car based on their computer and wind tunnel simulations. Is the team moving through car additions as days go by, or are they struggling to find balance? This gives insight regarding their correlation accuracy. People on track and the wiser people in the F1 Tech forum can help you decipher if a team has correlation issues. If they do, it’s more often than not, trouble.
With all that said, don’t assume because the first few days the car is in the garage a lot more than other teams, it’s a piece of
. These are extreme formula cars hand built from scratch, and sometimes there are panels that don’t quite fit, or heat spots that burn the paint, or switch-gears that can’t quite handle the vibrations, or leaks in the hydraulics that only could have been found while driving the car on track. This is what testing is for — for finding problems that can’t be tested with a simulator. Testing is to not only make the car ultimately faster, but to find reliability problems that only develop on track. Most every car will have some teething issues when starting because it’s a sign the engineers are pushing design limits ten tenths, and so should be expected.
Brett Favre (a former NFL quarterback) was once asked about his record number of interceptions over his career, and he answered, “You can’t say I wasn’t trying.” The exact same phrase needs to be applied to F1 teams. They are trying. Cars having issues here and there in testing is simply the team trying very hard to meet every edge. In fact, you want to see some problems as it’s a sign the team is finding limits. Nothing wrong with that. So don’t panic if you see some failures. A test rig at the home facility, no matter how complex, expensive, or effective, cannot finally simulate an actual car on an actual track. Geometry, computers, and mechanical engineering ingenuity can only go so far. Testing renders difficult to simulate faults like porpoising, DRS wing flutter, brake issues, or paint burn concerns. Testing gives teams the opportunity to make adjustments before the first race.
Patience is a virtue...
Remember to let the teams work things out. If they are still struggling to complete 50 laps a day by the end of testing, there may be cause for concern, but a few days correcting flaws and only getting in a handful of laps, is no reason to pull the rip cord. Teams usually work it out. So don’t freak if a team has to break out the hand saws and angle grinders, or has to tape panels down with helicopter tape, or affix shoddy looking parts with wrong color epoxy to get through a session. It’s ok. Be patient. Teams have very limited time to get things done, and sometimes less than optimal adjustments have to be made to get the data needed. Discontinuities happen in a tightly toleranced world. F1 is what it is. Think long view and adjust your hopium prescription till race 1...or more reasonably, till race 4 or 5.
A great barometer to know if your favorite driver is in a good car, is how the car looks to those on track actually watching the car. On track testing will show keen and experienced eyes if the car has basic stability issues, basic balance issues, a smoking problem, brake lock problems, if power can be put to track, if the car tends to push, or if it’s ass wiggles endlessly, etc. People on site trackside can help elucidate what the actual car is actually doing on the actual track. They have a perspective we don’t. So log many trackside opinions (especially those of former drivers while avoiding Kravitz and Crofty), and with discernment from many experienced voices, estimate a realistic perspective for your favorite team.
Please correct me if I’m wrong, but afaik, test cars are not inspected, do not have to meet FIA race regs, and are not under formal FIA scrutiny. In other words, the teams are free to test illegal parts if they wish. They do this simply to answer concerns like correlation, possible aero directions to take, or engine modes to further explore, etc. It’s all part of their test schedule and you don’t know those details — and never will. This again reinforces the point of not freaking out about lap times — slow or fast. We just don’t know what teams are doing legally or illegally, so don’t assume if they are slow that they actually are slow, or fast if they are actually fast. You just don’t know finally, and nobody else does either. Many, many times a team that has been fastest in testing ends up being third or worse come first race, and vice-versa. Just chill out with predictions and stay grounded in reality.
In the past we have had contributors claim the season was lost while testing was still underway! Don’t be that guy! Please. The veterans of this site, mods, and experienced contributors here will help you know what is really going on with every team. A good rule of thumb is the positive feedback number displayed by every F1 Technical contributor. That number is not the final arbiter of the contributor’s value, but a good barometer for the overall quality of their comments over time. That said, I’ve seen posters here with low numbers who were excellent contributors. It just takes some time to build that number, and this helps to make the number actually mean something. Weigh measured opinions over extreme ones. Every poster has posts they’d rather forget, but we all are human and we take the good with the bad.
Finishing up...
I’ve found videos from Scarbs and Kyle Engineers on YouTube to be very helpful in understanding F1 cars and what is happening with them technically.
Scarbs is especially helpful as he gives twitter updates all season long. He also contributes right here at F1 Tech (take a bow, Steven), and post’s YouTube videos often with Peter Windsor.
Kyle Engineers is better for much more in depth, long term analysis of F1 car aerodynamic specifics. Some of his videos from last year were arguably the best technical analysis I’d ever seen. Very educational stuff. You will learn watching Kyle.
Kyle Engineers:
Scarbs on Twitter: @ScarbsTech
Scarbs and Peter Windsor on YouTube:
Happy testing everybody and remember to stay chill — it’s a circus!
