25/02/2013
FEATURE BY MARC PRIESTLY
In Formula One's current incarnation, the opportunity to 'practice' the endless and complex scenarios which teams and drivers must execute faultlessly on each Grand Prix weekend, doesn't come around very often any more.
When I joined McLaren's old test team at the turn of the century, things were a little different.
By the same point in a new year, we'd have probably completed something like eight times the amount of mileage that the teams completed by the end of the first Jerez test a couple of weeks ago.
For a start we ran two cars everywhere and there were no real limitations about how much we could run. Teams got together and arranged as many tests as everyone wanted, often simply travelling from one venue in Spain, directly to another with only a few days in between to get things set up. At a big team like McLaren, if no one else wanted to 'come out to play', or we wanted to try a few things in private, we'd just hire the entire circuit for a week exclusively, cost was largely irrelevant.
Back then almost everyone had a dedicated Test Team staffed to the same levels you see the race teams operate at today. As mechanics we worked bloody hard, for ridiculously long hours and could be away for almost two months without returning home in January and February. There was certainly no such thing as a night shift crew, as is common place now, as operating two cars at each test meant there were no spare people to come in and take over the car prep at the end of a working day. Today of course, teams are only permitted to run one car each at a test, freeing up the other car crew of mechanics and support crew etc, to play that role and keep working hours somewhere near sensible.
I do realise here that I'm seriously at risk of sounding like a miserable old git, reminiscing about how tough we had it way back in the 'good old days' and how the mechanics of today don't realise just how easy they have it. To redress that a little I should of course point out that, today's pitlane mechanics don't have a dedicated test team to do all of the donkey work pre season, there is only one team, the race team. Since the demise of open testing and test teams in general, although there's obviously a lot less testing, any that does take place has to be covered by the race guys and with the season itself now running into November, add the pre-season tests to the mix and it's a long, long time away from home.
In the old days, as a Race Team member, we'd cruise around the factory during January and February at a comparatively leisurely pace, tinkering with pit equipment and polishing things, whilst the 'test monkeys', as we so rudely called them, pounded round and round Spain, moving from one venue to the next. We'd turn up for the last few days, once the car was all sorted, and carry out race simulations and pitstop practice, whilst the test guys looked on and sarcastically referred to us as the 'Superstars'.
Although the amount of mileage has reduced dramatically during pre-season, it is obviously the same for everyone.
Each team sets out at various points in the previous year to design and create a car they believe will give them the best chance of success in whichever battles they compete and they all go through the process in much the same way. When it comes to the point in the new year of assembling and presenting the finished article to the world at a press launch, we've seen slightly different approaches, but one thing in common for all of them is that what we see there is in fact, far from the finished article.
Some of the bigger teams launched at a larger, glitzy affair, in the days before heading off to the first test and in these instances the car that's photographed, like David Beckham at a movie premier and analysed in media circles like an intercepted WW2 coded message, can often bear only a small resemblance to the one which will take to the first Spanish test track in less than a week's time.
There have been times in my past where, either because the real bits simply weren't ready in time, or because we didn't want to reveal secrets to the press, we taped plastic, pretend exhaust tail pipes in place or glued old brake ducts temporarily to the hubs just for the photos. More often than not, less than an hour after the media had left, the car was back in the race bays and stripped down into hundreds of bits as we got it ready to go testing for real.
At the track, everyone has their own agendas and schedules, but if you laid all eleven sets of test plans out next to each other, they'll all cover the same aspects and set out to achieve the same objectives.
Obviously the most important box to tick off for every car is the reliability one. A new car can be designed and assembled to the highest of standards and by the best people in state of the art factories, but until it turns a wheel in anger for the first time you just don't quite know what it might throw back at you. Simulation is great and pretty advanced these days, but it's difficult to predict accurately just how much the different tyre sidewalls might move under load and at different pressures, or what impact that might have on the clearances to the cars' floors etc, at different ride heights and so on. Will bodywork, carbon floors or wiring looms burn around the exhaust areas? Will mechanics physically be able to carry out the necessary changes to the car, is there enough space to get hands and spanners in, can it be done with heat proof gloves on when the back of the car's red hot during a session? These things, along with hundreds of other basic questions, all need to be answered in the first few days of the first test to be able to then start working through the rest of the program understanding the cars' performance and dynamic characteristics.
Of course this year we've got a new set of Pirelli compounds to get heads around again and after the uncertainty of the first part of last season, with tyres catching everyone out somewhat, the teams will want to put a lot of time and effort into knowing what to expect come the first race. Already we're seeing signs that high degradation rates will play a big role in shaking up race days this year, just what Pirelli were looking for of course.
Each team has to work through a range of sweeping setup changes to see if the car responds in the way they expect it to. This is where good simulation departments can do a pretty accurate job, but it needs to be verified. So too do the numbers predicted by the aero division. The wind tunnel will have been running twenty-four-seven in the build up and, as Ferrari discovered to their detriment last year, if they don't correlate to the actual numbers produced by the car on track, it'll lead you down a spurious and disastrously confusing path. One way they verify this is by carrying out constant speed runs along long straights and measuring the loads produced on the cars' suspension and its corresponding ride heights. The data gained can be matched against the data for the same given speed in the tunnel and, in theory give you a rough figure for the amount of downforce, or 'aerodynamic points' produced by the aero configuration on the car.
Other items on the agenda will include the comfort and optimum positioning of the driver in the car. Is he as low as possible for the purposes of the centre of gravity? Can he operate all of the controls, can he do it easily, at speed, under pressure, under G force loads and are the switches easy to distinguish from each other? Does he have adequate visibility on track, both ahead and from the mirrors? Can he eject from the car and replace the steering wheel in the mandatory FIA prescribed timeframe? Does he have the right levels of assistance from the power steering? Pedal setup, elbow clearance, steering wheel height, aero screen profile (the small clear screen at the front of the cockpit opening), these are all small things which need to be ticked off the list, but which, if not quite right, can take valuable time away from working on performance and reliability of the car.
In preparation for the first race weekend, engineers will need to know how long each of the mechanical and on-board systems based changes on the car will take to carry out. During the testing process, somebody will be charged with timing each procedure from getting the driver into the car, to making basic changes like anti roll bar adjustments, removal and refitting of bodywork, damper adjustments and so on. Larger jobs like engine and gearbox changes, removal and refitting of the cars' floor and software downloads and updates also need to have a time allotted to them, along with as many others as is possible. A spreadsheet can then be produced which helps engineers and management make decisions about what can and can't be done in the often tight timescales available at various points across a race weekend.
The things I've mentioned form merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the job lists at each team over the three permitted pre season tests. Of course team members need to work hard on pit stops and as much as the car needs to have its reliability proven, so too do the members of the crew and their equipment.
Obviously on top of all of this is the question of how quick your car actually is, a question which can be difficult to answer, particularly in relation to everyone else. The truth is though, that whilst teams can run their own, undisclosed fuel levels, most teams have a good idea what everyone else is doing. It's common for teams to run a 'baseline' fuel level and in the interests of consistency and comparisons, for that fuel level to be the same from season to season. With personnel moving around the paddock and between teams over time, those 'baseline' fuel figures don't remain secret forever and of course once those numbers are known, it doesn't take too much to work out roughly how quick a testing lap really is. So don't believe too much when everyone's saying we have no idea how quick we are, we're just working to our own program etc. Believe me, they know if they've got a quick car and they know if they produced a dog.
With the second test now over, things really get serious this week in Barcelona as the larger teams will have major upgrade packages which they'll hope to run in Melbourne. Expect to see full race teams present, conducting simulations of an entire race weekend, plenty of pit stops and lots more work on trying to understand tyres. Drivers have just two more test days each and for the 2013 rookies in particular, they'll be expected to be up to speed when it comes to the Australian GP. The pressure's on.
I'll be in Barcelona at the test, so follow me on Twitter for all the latest, as it happens.
Marc Priestley