How can you tell who's really quickest in F1 testing?

F1

The timesheets at the end of the day tell one story... but it's unlikely to be the full truth of F1 testing in Bahrain. Chris Medland explores how to get a better idea of who's on top — and who's not

Sergio Perez pre-season testing 2023

Sergio Perez watches the action in 2023 F1 testing

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There’s a real fascination with pre-season testing, because of the amount of unknowns and flexibility that teams have to define their own schedules and run plans.

Different teams have different priorities and so it’s rare that there are clear comparisons that can be made in the same way that FP2 qualifying simulations and long runs often deliver a strong picture of competitiveness during a race weekend.

But understanding that picture is important for the teams themselves, as it helps them know where they stand in the pecking order, and more crucially the lap times that each car might be capable of when it comes to both qualifying and race pace in order to judge cut-off times and approaches to strategy.

And yet even the teams themselves rarely know exactly how things are playing out at the end of testing without relying on a little bit of rumour and hearsay.

 

Rumour rules at testing

Paddock gossip is one of the main ways journalists get a feel for the competitive picture, because individual teams might give away a little bit about how they are getting on, or drivers have feedback about other cars they have seen on track, and then it can be carefully pieced together. But even so, that’s far from a perfect science.

Yet teams lean on that gossip too, because they tend to work in the realms of a perfect science – or at least as close to one as they can get – and testing doesn’t allow that to apply to times.

Lewis Hamilton walks down the Bahrain pitlane at 2023 F1 testing

Paddock gossip still has its place amid high-tech data

Michael Potts/BSR Agency/Getty Images

It used to be the case that piecing together fastest sectors was a good way of trying to understand what was going on, but that was fraught with risk. Teams would back off at certain times to hide their true pace prior to GPS data, and complete corners could even be cut out on some track layouts to intentionally cloud matters.

With the GPS data available that’s now not possible without being obvious, but it doesn’t necessarily make it easier to work out times.

 

Too many variables to compare ultimate pace

You might think the lower fuel runs during qualifying simulations provide a clear order, but the margin for error is far bigger in these scenarios. The time of day a car is on track, the weather conditions, wind speed and direction, track temperature, fuel loads, extra weight on the car due to sensors measuring certain items… The list of things that can impact raw lap time and leave a car’s qualifying simulation far from its actual raw pace is extensive.

Plus, knowing who is going to be quickest in qualifying and who might have the faster race car can be two very different things, as we saw with Red Bull in 2023. Beaten to pole position by another team in seven of the final 12 races, Red Bull won all but one of those.

 

Race pace calculations

However race pace can be seen a little more easily.

The key is to spot two teams running a race simulation at the same time during the pre-season test. In Bahrain this tends to happen towards the end of the second or third days of running, when conditions are at their most representative, but sometimes take place before the lunch break too.

Red Bull of Sergio Perez ahead of Felipe Drugovich in Aston Martin at 2023 F1 testing

Looking at two cars running race simulations at the same time can reveal comparative performance, but it’s far from definitive

Giuseppe Cacace/AFP via Getty Images

Then the main variable is the weight of any extra instrumentation that teams might be running to monitor the car, compared to a race weekend when it will be as light as possible.

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During a race sim the fuel effect is largely known, but some teams will run completely legally and others might have a lighter car and carry out more lifting and coasting at certain times, so it’s not foolproof.

It’s easy for teams to hide pace, simply through the amount of fuel they are carrying. If a team adds 10kg more fuel to the car than it usually would run in its qualifying simulation, then it will be 0.3sec per lap slower over that one lap, giving it a clear indication of what it could have done without rivals knowing.

Similarly, the additional instrumentation mentioned above (sensors, non-spec parts, even ballast) also provide a way of adding weight that other teams can’t be certain of.

 

Tyre choice

Teams that don’t run the softest C4 or C5 compounds during a qualifying simulation also know a big chunk of time is available, while running the power unit at a lower setting – for example a free practice mode – also masks potential.

All of this makes getting a complete ranking so tough, with teams lacking concrete data on each other to work with. Power unit manufacturers with customer teams might be able to gain a tiny bit more insight given their knowledge of how their own PU works, but it’s only one variable out of many.

 

Tell-tale signs

That said, there are signs that can let you know if your team is in particularly good or bad shape.

Mileage is often more telling than lap time, because cars that are running consistently and regularly are a sign of a team that is well-placed with a reliable car that is easy to set up. Those doing lots of shorter runs and making regular changes suggest it is hard to find the sweet spot of a car, or there are reliability concerns.

Charles Leclerc with stern look on Ferrari pitwall at 2023 Bahrain Grand Prix

Worried… or just worn out?

Dan Istitene/F1 via Getty Images

Then there are the tyres being used. Using Bahrain as an example, the C1, C2 and C3 tyre will be supplied to the teams for the race weekend, so comparing long runs on the same C1 or C2 provides some reflection of where teams stand in terms of race pace. And those racking up the laps on those tyres tend to be the more confident outfits when it comes to their machinery.

And the final hints don’t come from the cars at all, but the drivers after they climb out of them. Their body language, the comments they make about how the test is going, and information provided by the teams in their press releases can all be telling. Teams in a particularly good position rarely talk up their chances, but those struggling often give away little admissions that they are not where they want to be.

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