Carlos Sainz has proposed a novel idea that would allow teams more on-track testing time.
Long gone are the days when teams would not only test in-season, but actually had dedicated test teams in order that they could continue throughout the year.
Now, as is the case this year, teams are restricted to a handful of track days, and a filming day or two, leaving the majority of development to be done away from the track on the simulator.
Now with Williams, and admitting that he has some catching up to do, Sainz has offered a solution.
“I haven’t done as many test items as I wish I could do,” he told reporters in Bahrain. “So I feel like I’m leaving the test with five or six things that I wish I could have tested.
“I wish I could have back-to-backs,” he continued, “to know which direction to go for the rest of the season.
“There’s no time,” he sighed. “I’m a bit upset in general with this rule.
“We spend days and days and days in the simulator,” he said. “It’s just a thought that I have that they could just put into the budget cap whether you want to run a simulator or you want to do testing and you choose where to spend your budget into that.
“You might do it for environmental,” he continued, “but you have drivers flying private to the UK and out of Monaco every single day to go to a simulator. For me, I don’t understand that side of Formula 1.
“That rule, when they decided to ban testing, they developed 20 million simulators and spent the money in 20 million simulators to don’t go testing.
“It’s a personal thing,” he insisted, “it’s not GPDA or anything; I don’t understand where it comes from. You could say let’s put 10 or 12 days of testing limit and each team uses them as they wish in which part of the season.”
Under the current system, the Spaniard believes that drivers are unable to assist with car development.
“The reality is that with the situation of F1 testing nowadays, everything I tell you here, there’s no testing,” he said. “Testing doesn’t exist, which for me I hate it, because it’s exactly where I believe a Formula 1 team can improve the car and a driver can have an input in development. But nowadays, testing doesn’t really exist.”
