Formula One Barcelona Test Week
Shake Down Week = Test Week
This week is test week at the Catalunya track in Barcelona for all the Formula One teams starting on the 26th till the 30th January. How it works is there are 5 days with the teams allowed to use 3 days for running their cars and no more. They have to state which days they will be using the track and the off days they will spend in the pit garage reading the data gathered and tweaking their cars.
The obvious schedule would be to run every other day and gather as much data as possible which will guide them on what needs to change on the car and to learn exactly what type of race car has been developed. Up till now this has all been tested using wind tunnels and simulators so the data will reveal if their information is lining up with each other. This does not always happen and the teams priority is to get the data from the car going around the track matching the data from the simulator. Only then do they have a project that can move forward and why technology is so important.
Williams Formula One will miss the entire week which is the first time I have heard of a team missing out. The new regulations means this year the entire car had to be changed and were not small changes. The cars this year are much shorter so the time spent last season building this car most teams should be prepared or close to being prepared. Williams was over weight and they are scrambling back at the factory in order to be ready for the first race of the season which is 6 weeks away. the only testing the team will have is via the simulator which will only reveal so much.
The other team to cut things fine is Aston Martin who should be ready for Thursday and Friday testing losing out on one day. Testing days are so important and losing out on one or all the days is not great news. With Adrian Newey in charge at Aston Martin and his back ground in car design things will have to be right as he is a perfectionist. Why test a car if the car is not ready and Newey being 3 days late is actually a good sign.
You wonder how many of the other 9 teams are truly ready for testing if one team is missing out entirely and another missing one day. We saw Mercedes and Red Bull 2 years ago arrive only to find out the car would bounce or porpoise on the straights and was a major set back.
As you can see from the above snap shot there are a few teams who have missed there slots already with McLaren joining Aston Martin and Williams. Not a train smash for McLaren and they managed to get out on track for the final session on day 2 so they wasted two sessions.
The number of laps completed by each engine is what drives the data and Ferrari had completed 318, Red Bull 273, Mercedes 209 and Audi 27 with Honda on 0. Ford which is Red Bull had a smoking engine on day one so reliability could be a problem.
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Adrian Newey arriving three days late with Aston Martin is such a classic Newey move he’d rather miss track time than run a car that isn't perfectly right. The real worry has to be Honda and Ford's reliability though. Seeing that Red Bull-Ford engine smoking on Day 1 shows just how steep the learning curve is for these 2026 regulations. It’s going to be a long six weeks for those engineers.
Yes many have said the same thing as Newey is a perfectionist and he knows he can do far more with the car instead of on the track for the entire 3 days. He is a genius when it comes to design and I expect this year they will be far more competitive. Those engineers are going to have a rough 6 weeks.