31 January 1998 |
No 1 |
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The launch of the 1998 Formula One cars, only on Auto Race Net
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Testing Times.
In this modern era of Formula one racing, the months of January and February have become full of glitzy car launches, shakedowns and testing.
Indeed the budgets for some of these launch "productions" would have run a decent F1 operation as little as fifteen years ago. It always seems to me to mirror the changed face of Formula one, where form is sometimes more important than substance.
No doubt it must please the sponsors, it is after all their money that is being spent. I suppose they judge the success of the launch by the amount of column inches in the press, or did they make the evening news?. The battle for exposure is as never ending as the racing teams battle for speed on the track.
I guess that is one reason why I liked the way Williams handled the launch of their FW20. The venue was at Silverstone,inside a racing pit garage. Once the covers had been removed the car actually ran a few laps of the track. A racing car silent and static is one thing, but "alive" and on the track it is quite another. I often wonder whether there is a connection between the continued Williams success on the track and their down to earth approach to their launches. Frank Williams,despite all his years at the top seems to be addicted to the habit of spending money wisely.
So with the majority of the new cars unveiled we are now moving into the peak testing month of February,all the time preparing for the first Grand Prix of the year in Australia on March the 8th.
It was Ron Dennis,who some years ago called this period of testing the "winter world championship". Ferrari had dominated the testing times all over the off season only to be blown away at the first race by the then all new Mclarens. A lesson for us all to be cautious in our evaluations of these times.
Initial testing is of course a crucial part of the Grand Prix year,and this year, due to the new regulations even more important than usual.
The new grooved tires take the teams into some completely new territory. Whereas in previous years the cars have mostly been a development of what has gone before,this year the teams face a host of unknowns as to how to maximize the performance of their car over a race distance. With slicks the teams had many years of experience and data to fall back on. Now it is a clean sheet of paper.
For many Formula one fans this testing "silly season" is much misunderstood. Typically all the information released is the fastest time for the day,and the number of laps each car completed. Sometimes the team will also release some PR hype carefully crafted to give as little away as possible,although some teams are better than others at this! From this scant information endless speculation develops as to each teams prospects,while others will dismiss it all with the comment "testing times are meaningless".
So what should we make of it all.
The most important task in this initial testing phase is reliability. If you cannot finish you cannot win. In these days of continuous development many components will have had some running in a previous "interim" car. So although the components may be new the system will have been previously tested. This is one of the reasons for the "big" teams success and highlights the difficulties faced by the new teams entering the fray. This was apparent in the early days of the 97 season as both Stewart and Arrows struggled to build reliability into their cars.
One of the most important tasks for the teams to achieve then is as many full race simulations as possible. No amount of PR speak should be allowed to gloss over any team that fails during February in this area.
Judging a new cars true speed potential during testing is easily the hardest task. There are just so many variables that impact on the lap time of an F1 car round a circuit that from a distance it is impossible to draw firm conclusions. Track and ambient temperature can have a dramatic effect on performance. For many years during the long month of May at Indianapolis 5 pm was known as "happy hour". It being nearly always possible to bang in a quick lap and grab a headline. The only problem was, that come race day the race was well over by that time and only the teams who had found a way to make their cars work well between 11 and three won the races.
It is the same in Formula one. The team that drains out all the fuel,slaps on a new set of tires,changes to a qualifying set up,and sends their driver out just before the track closes for the day may get some good press around the world,but what have they truly learned?
One sign of a promising car is one that "is quick right out of the box". This shows that the car has no major design flaws,and if coupled to reliability leads to smiles all round. One such initial test was of the Jordan 198. The car also lapped quicker every day,another positive sign.
The other major problem is of course the team that "sandbags", which essentially means to hide their true speed.
Williams have of course, been masters of this in the past. They have been happy to let others win the "winter championship", confident that when the chips are down come qualifying for the first race they could deliver the goods. They almost traditionaly run their cars with reasonable fuel loads during testing,thus ensuring non spectacular lap times. This is of course a very effective way of masking performance, as only the team can know the true fuel load. By the same token for every 1 KG of fuel carried the team will know the loss in lap time and can therefore easily compute the cars true potential.
The new regulations this year also hinder comparisons with previous years lap times. For even the fastest 1998 car will be slower than a 1997 one. The other trap is the times recorded by interim 1997 cars. These cars,though made narrower to comply with the new regulations and running grooved tires are very different and faster than a true 1998 car.
So as the tests in February commence in earnest keep an open mind about the prospects for the various teams,as is often the case in Formula one,not everything is as it may seem.
Roger Horton
Singapore
e-mail - rmhorton@pacific.net.sg
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