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Its a big question in my mind that why only 12 days of testing before season is so much important for teams, they build the car and can be test any day, any time without any limits at there headquarters then why 12 days of official testing have so much importance??????????

You can only run your 2013 chassis for 12 days in total all year apart from race weekends regardless of the location.

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What do you mean? They cannot test without limits at their HQ. Only private straight line tests are allowed.

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"OHO!-magazine number 46/2006: - I read somewhere that I drive with the luck of a drunk."

oh i didn't know that, but how FIA can make sure that????????

Because only McLaren has a secret test track at HQ.

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Disclaimer: The above post maybe tongue in cheek.

"I thought I'd get your theories, mock them, then embrace my own. The usual."

Give it 10 years and simulators may well be capable of replicating absolutely everything that the teams use testing for, apart from pitstop practice maybe! Variable wind conditions, track surfaces, following other cars. Once CFD can be solved on the fly they will all be a doddle

???????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????? ???????????????????????????? ????????????????????????????

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still searching for right answer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The teams test and simulate about everything they can think of, from computer simulations to 7 post rigs, to testing to destruction. But a Formula One car and team is a very complex thing, the one and only way to really find out if everything's working as planned is to get to a track and run laps.

Strangely enough, one important thing is to verify that the simulations and testing back at the factories match up with the real world results. if the aero CFD program does not reproduce the air effects properly, then it's practically useless, and changes need to be made. On this picture of a Williams, they have attached a device with lots of sensor probes to measure pressure. The computer CFD program predicts what the pressures should bem and this device will measure at the track, and hopefully the results will match up.



What we see at testing is literally the tip of the iceberg. Back at the team's home factories, data is continuously streamed in from the testing session, and teams of engineers are poring over the data, seeking ways to improve anything. A Formula One car is an ever evolving creature, every part is continuously scrutinized, and every day changes are made. Not every year, or even every month, but every day. That's where the money goes. For instance McLaren have over 1300 employees, and all those people work towards building just one prototype.

I strongly suggest that these videos be viewed.

http://youtu.be/v5WP-IqICI8
http://youtu.be/hkY_EeHwlcQ

thanks mate for your detailed answer, really appreciated but my actual question is that teams can privately test there cars anywhere, so why only 12 days consider so much????????????????

Because to test an F1 car properly you need F1 race tyres and Pirelli are only going to provide them at official sessions. Plus, if you know just how loud F1 cars are, it'd be fairly hard to keep it hidden from everybody.



They can't test at a circuit on any day other than the 12 designated for pre-season testing.

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I also have one of these.

Teams cannot test their cars outside of the official testing (which are those 12 days).

Ok here's your answer

Testing has been severely restricted to cut costs, as teams where spending huge amounts of money. Due to the lack of testing it is important for teams to get as much information on real life simulation as they can, as there are many things that a computer cant give accurate information for and also for calibrating their simulators.

However, teams can run previous years chassis (I think its a 3 year gap) as much as they want, Red Bull do this for their "Showcar" where they take one of their older cars to random places around the world. This shouldn't be mistaken for testing.

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The bottom line is ... NO, they cannot test anywhere. And it's practically impossible to sneak one in. To test you have to rent a track (or in the case of Ferrari, build your own private track), transport people and equipment, and the sounds of a car at a track cannot be hidden from observers.

If teams were allowed to, and had enough money, they would test every day, 365 days a year. The FIA allows only 12 days in an effort to reduce costs, and it's a hard pill for the teams to swallow because it just is not enough time.

Last time they had unlimited testing. Probably why Ferrari was so successful with Schumi?

It was a factor, but they were not the only ones testing on a massive scale.

Well they had a private test track, Monza and Imola is nearby too

Ferrari along with Schumacher did majority of their testing in Fiorano. Enzo Ferrari has a house besides the track where Schumacher lived during all his time at Ferrari.

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I think OP wants to know what is there to stop the teams from building a secret, underground test track with noise dampers and whatnot?

It's the tyres. That's the crucial bit that's missing. Pirelli provide them only on FIA sanctioned testing days, apart from race weekends. If they ran round those secret tracks with some other spec tyres, it would be utterly useless, and a colossal waste of money. I'm not sure, but they would probably need to have extra engines/gearboxes, etc, and teams that supply them, like Ferrari, Mercedes, etc would easily get wind of what the other teams were upto.

Brilliant mate, u exactly understand my point which may be I didn't ask properly.Now may be someone can elaborate more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I literally hate it when people have literally no idea what "literally" literally means.

But still, thanks for the insightful post.

Firstly, Welcome to Formula One!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Unlimited testing as you think does not exist. They only have mentioned few days to test. This has been put in place to reduce costs.
FIA can make sure the rule is not violated because it would be very clear if a team tests a F1 car. They are not quiet nor go unnoticed. All major worthy racing tracks around the world are open for the world to see. Also, The penalty if caught I'd imagine would be massive and hence act as a deterrent

I used to ask the forum, whether is it possible to have an underground testing track before.

It is possible to have an underground testing track, of course. It's physically possible, just as it is possible to have a motorway sized tunnel through a mountain.

But it just wouldn't be able to work. It'd cost a lot of money to do such a thing and would require a lot of contractors willing to keep their mouths shut about what they've seen - especially hard when some newspapers would pay big bucks for such a scandal.

The team would also need to keep every single employee happy for the rest of their lives, otherwise a disgruntled former employee might just tip somebody off about what's going on underneath their former team's headquarters.

Formula One cars are very loud, too. Even if the track was underground, i'd guess you could hear them from the land above.

The team would also need tyres from Pirelli to get some worthwhile information. They don't just hand them out whenever somebody asks for them. Even if they did, the Italian manufacturer might get a little curious as to why this team is requiring 20 sets a week when no testing is going on.

It just couldn't work. There are too many loose tongues to even give the idea a chance.

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I also have one of these.

It's technically possible to build a secret underground testing track, but it would be pointless;
- The expense of building the track would be horrific - hundreds of millions of GBP, if not getting into a billion.
- It would be impossible to keep the construction secret. Look at a race circuit on Googlemaps and see how big it actually is - how could you build something like that and keep it secret?
- Let alone all the FIA rules you'd break. If you were found out, you can guarantee a lifetime ban from all motorsports for you and your team.
- Plus the enclosed space would affect your aerodynamic readings. We know that wake from the front wing bouncing off the roof of the tunnel in Monaco affects the rear wing, and you're going to have that all the way around your underground facility.
- Plus safety is always an issue in underground facilities. How do you cope with a fire? How do you extract the driver in the event of a serious accident?
- And finally, you won't have any current spec tyres to run on, as Pirelli take the tyres back from everyone at the end of each Test session and race.

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90% of the topics on the PF1 Forum consist of this: "My favourite driver didn't win! The driver I hate the most did win!! Wah! WAH!! WAAAAHHHHH!!!"

I think people grossly underestimate the size of a race-track. It's got an area of quite a few square km. Think about how long it takes you to walk a kilometer. It would take years to dig up that earth in secret, and another few years to finish the track. The money used would give Arab oil sheikhs a severe financial complex. That money would be infinitely more useful if it was funneled into developing the car. It's really a no-brainer.

Not so sure about that. Couldn't you have some ideas about the aerodynamic effectivity of a car regardless of the tyres you put on?

The car isn't going to reach maximum velocity down the straight and through corners without the race tyres, so any reading would be highly affected by the strength of the non-regulation tyres they had.

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I also have one of these.

It's a moot point, since the aero is also going to be different in an enclosed area.

That would have been my point about building an underground track, but I didn't write it down because I wasn't so sure about the difference between an underground track and a normal track on a windless day. Possibly they could handle air pressure and constitution to a level it would be quite representative?

Basically 3 things.

1. Tyres as already mentioned
2. ECU. Engine control unit are provided and monitored by FIA. So there is no easy way to run the car without ECU other than making their own ECU. So not easy getting around the restrictions.
3. Fear of getting caught : If you do run unauthorised test and get caught, I am sure you are pretty much done for that year and possibly multiple year along with large financial fine. No point in risking that.

I've done some very rough calculations based on the cost of building the channel tunnel updated for inflation and worked against the length of Fiorano in a per mile estimate...

...Basically, I reckon it would cost a team about £1 Billion to build an underground test track...

And that's before you consider it's useless because the aero data would be corrupted by being an enclosed space and that it would be highly illegal and the team would be banned from all motorsport by the FIA if they were ever found out...

I believe my wording was accurate and in the choice of words. At the track there may be 30 to 50 people, but back at the home factory there would be easily ten times as many employess industriously hard at work, all contributing to what is going on at the test venue.

Teams are carefully scrutinized to ensure they follow the restrictions on test times, wind tunnel use, and so on. But watching just as closely and with greater effort are the other teams, and they would take great joy in provinding proof to the FIA of a blatant violation. In sense the teams war on each other, and we have even witnessed industrial espionage.

So for any team to countenance testing in secret, in an undergound test track or in Kim Jong-un's backyard would have the potential for grave consequences. People move from team to team, and just for example Paddy Lowe is leaving Mclaren. How could you keep such a secret?

The testing ban is the most screwed up rule in F1. so you can spend hundreds of millions of dollars on super computers/software have hundreds of developers running these systems which cost more than a mechanic for sure. Then have unlimited simulation testing on these computers but you cant go out on a track and practice?

FIA has hurt the smaller teams they had hoped to help, do you think Marussia or any other team aside from RB,MC,MB,Ferrari,Lotus can spend millions per year on simulation testing? No way so this rule makes zero sense to me.

Let teams test as much as they want but with no test team. so that will limit testing on track during the season just by staff alone.

Sometimes the FIA over engineers stupid things that end up hurting the sport, plus testing is followed by the media which in turn we as fans follow which we in turn buy the newspapers/blogs/websites that report on testing. Good business for everyone, when was the last time anyone reported on a testing time done in a simulator??? Come on this is stupid to even continue with this ban.

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Testing is still not "literally the tip of the iceberg", quite simple because F1 testing is F1 testing, there is, in fact, no iceberg at all, hence it cannot literally be anything other than a small part of the enormous amount of work that goes into developing an F1 car.

"Literally" means "taking words in their usual or primary sense without metaphor or allegory"[OED]. It is, colloquially, used to indicate that something is like something else, this usage has become common parlance, but, being pedantic about things, it is an erroneous usage of the term as far as the formal English language is concerned.

However, what we see at testing is most certainly figuratively the tip of the iceberg.

Anyway, back to my self imposed vow of silence.

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"you can never be too paranoid"

Do you mean that teams can test only on race weekends, at the track designated for the competition? They already do, in all the practice sessions. In fact, every lap any car is on track the engineers are learning, especially during the race itself.

Even if more testing days were allowed, the teams with more money would test more than the teams with less money. On track, or in a computer, it doesn't matter, the teams with more money will spend more than the teams with less money.

Back at each home factory for each team, there are scores of engineers poring over the data, seeking out flaws and ways to improve. The big teams with money have hundreds of engineers hard at work doing this, while the poorer teams don't have as many people or resources. It's just a brutal part of the cruel world of Formula One.

my point is this, if you limit the testing to the current staff you have meaning the race team, then on track practice would be limited just by travel during the season. let's say we are in Malaysia on sunday after race day, that team is the only team allowed to participate in testing, they are not going to ship the car the team and everything else to Maranello or Mugello to test. They can't use the next track they race at due to race restrictions, they may be allowed to stay at Malaysia to test there which other than fuel and track time the cost is minimal so I dont see teams getting hurt by cost here, even if the team tested on other tracks around the area it is not going to cost as much as running a simulator 24/7. I think on track testing is cheap compared to computer related testing,

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One.
The best song ever written....thanks Bono
I am the Number 1Tifosi

That is a valid concept, but runs up against logistics and the basic fact that members of the race team are already worn to the bone by the sheer amount of time spent away from home and at tracks. We can easliy discount back-to-back races where it's already a Herculean effort to break down after a race and get everything to the next track on time. And right now we have a huge break in the middle of the summer just because the team members require a break.

which supports my point, just by limiting the teams you limit testing on the track. Testing can be positive if you do it right and this is just 1 idea I am sure there are better ideas out there.

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One.
The best song ever written....thanks Bono
I am the Number 1Tifosi