F1 : Tracks or Testing, which makes sense?

F1 Supremo Bernie Ecclestone

Track talks just don’t end in Formula One. With both new and old tracks trying their best to get into the F1 calendar, the big question remains – Does F1 really need the current number of tracks? Can these be reduced or whether increased testing is a viable option? Read on to know more.

Whose Track is it Anyway?

Bernie Ecclestone, the CEO of Formula One Management, is one man who has his hands full with a good number of tracks to choose from in the F1 calendar. He for one seems to be more concerned about how much money he gets by holding a race. Even though cutting down on tracks for testing would make some sense, Ecclestione might definitely beg to differ for obvious reasons.

But the fact remains it is Bernie who calls the shots when it comes to tracks and races. Choosing which track is to be axed and which one to be retained makes sense to him commercially. That’s precisely the reason why the Indian GP went off the 2014 calendar. The taxes seemed to make a huge hole in his pockets. In addition, his favourite Hermann Tilke gets to build all the new circuits (which are considered to be boring with less of race excitement and more of technical soundness kept in mind while designing them).

While theoretically it makes sense to reduce the number of tracks/races , give the teams and drivers a breathing space and let testing and development take over. But the ground realities are different. Even if the number of races were reduced, say hypothetically, (the only way that might happen if the old tracks are scrapped and there aren’t new one’s to replace them), testing might not be on the minds of some of the Formula One teams.

Show your Wallet

But why not testing? The simplest of answer is the cost.

The cost of conducting a test and the development thereafter is un-imaginable. While for a team like Ferrari or a Red-Bull these might be a drop in their pool of budget(thanks to prominent and wealthy sponsors), for a team like Caterham, Williams or a Sauber (who are anyhow struggling hard to survive in Formula One) it’ll make the alarm bells go ringing.

The 2014 season will see the introduction of the new 1.6-litre turbocharged engines as well as more advanced energy ERS(Energy Recovery Systems) in Formula One. Factor in these and the designing and testing costs of the new chassis. More testing would definitely be a worry for the back-markers and the mid-grid runners, if not the front-runners.

However, the young driver’s test has been scrapped along with the eight day mandatory testing. And in come four two-day track tests (winter tests) to be held during the week succeeding a race weekend in Europe, which apparently has been done to bring down costs.

Back in 2009, in house testing was banned and that made the help the costs ease-out a bit. But the financial battles seem to have come back to haunt these teams. Though there are expected reductions in costs with the amount of wind tunnel testing and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) related research work being shared by two teams but largely the teams would be burdened with additional costs.

Also, there’s no cap on a budget for all the teams, a front runner might be spending between a rough estimate of $200-300 million to a back-marker’s $40-60 million depending on the amount of sponsorship they get. Though debateable, this disparity doesn’t really provide a level playing field for all the teams.

So, at present, neither a cut in the number of tracks nor the additional testing augur well for Formula One.