Towards a WEC-style F1 Prologue?

It is on the Prologue template organized by the World ChampionshipEndurance that Liberty Media wishes to model the 2020 winter tests in order to make it an event in its own right, a sort of 23rd Grand Prix.

Organized like a race meeting, they would take place over one week and no longer two as was still the case this year. While for the moment they are organized by the teams with a circuit – Barcelona in this case – they would come under the aegis of the FOM which would require racing with the regular drivers, kilos of fuel defined so that the hierarchy tests reflect reality, etc.

As Stéphane Clair, director of the Var circuit, also confirms, Paul-Ricard and two other circuits (Barcelona and Bahrain) are candidates. For his part, Christian Horner, main team of Red Bull Racing, remains an ardent defender of winter testing with half his strength.

“I think we do too much winter testing anyway, comments Andy Green, technical director of Racing Point, to echo the words of the boss of the Austrian team. I think with all the bench testing and simulators we have, the cars are pretty reliable.

Also, the tracks we can go to test in the winter don't really represent the majority of the tracks we go to or the temperatures we will have. And if you really want to shake it up a little F1, making things a little more unpredictable, it would help again to reduce pre-season testing. »

Green also emphasizes that the 8 days of winter testing are much more difficult than equivalent days in the Grands Prix. “These are very difficult tests, the days are long, the nights are short, the car runs almost all the time. You have to change a lot of parts. Not a good way to start a season, especially with 22 races! »

As for the calendar, we will be set at Spa-Francorchamps at the latest, at the end of August, when the championship resumes.