The numbers game: Winter testing

Winter testing ended on Tuesday for the Renault F1 Team. So what conclusions can be drawn already? Pat Symonds told us as much last week, when we asked him about decoding the lap-times that come out of winter testing. As he tip-toed through the subject, his words were littered with phrases like ‘difficult job’ and ‘tricky exercise’. The message was clear: working out who is quick, and who’s not, is not exactly a mug’s game – but it can come close sometimes…

So what conclusions can we draw from winter testing? Well, task number one is to pay tribute to the men and women who have made it possible. During February, the test team spent 23 days out of 28 in Spain, working night and day (quite literally) to develop the R26.

Each year, it’s a superhuman effort, and that was the case again in 2006. “Everybody has worked extremely hard to be as ready as possible for the start of the season,” explained Chief Test Engineer Christian Silk last Tuesday in Valencia. “It is important to say a big thank-you to every member of the test team for the hard work they have done over the last eight weeks.”

A study of the numbers that have come out of the winter tests also gives plenty of reasons for reassurance. Not only have the Renaults consistently been around the top of the timesheets at every type of circuit during the winter, but they have run with impressive reliability since the track debut of the R26 and its RS26 V8 engine on 10 January in Jerez.

In spite of pushing the development of the R25 until the very last race of the 2005 season, the team hit its project milestones and had the R26 ready before Christmas for static testing. The car ran on the date planned 12 months beforehand, 10 January 2006, and by just two weeks later, there were two new cars available for the test team to work with. What’s more, the policy of only running the engine in the new car – quite late relative to our competitors – appears to have been a good solution.

In total, the R26 has now completed nearly 14,000 km – a 73% increase relative to the same stage in 2005. The cars are running an average of 12% further every day compared to 2005. There has been just one major reliability problem – the structural issue with the rear wing discovered in Jerez – that was resolved quickly and responsibly, without undue disruption to the test programme.

So does that mean everything is proceeding serenely to the first race? Far from it. The whole team is working harder than ever because there is one simple rule when it comes to being reliable: to take nothing for granted, and prepare every last detail as minutely as possible.

In the minds of the engineers, you are never reliable – simply one small step away from failure. It requires constant monitoring, management and evaluation to maintain the levels of quality that allow you to challenge for a championship. That detailed work is what’s happening this week at Enstone and Viry, before the equipment departs for Bahrain.

With such positive foundations during the pre-season preparations, what is the mood within the Renault F1 Team just one week ahead of the opening race?

“It has been a tough winter, with some very demanding engineering and logistics tasks to manage,” explained Chassis Technical Director Bob Bell. “Since then, though, our strong performance in winter testing has given everybody a genuine boost in motivation. It has been an intensive winter of preparation, and we sincerely believe we have a strong chance of successfully defending our championships.”

Those are the key values ahead of the 2006 F1 season. Pragmatism, realism, and the dogged determination to make the R26 into a package capable of spearheading a championship challenge, one small detail at a time.