Christian Horner would be quite happy to lose another day of testing – despite having only three before the new Formula 1 season starts.
Last year there were six days of pre-season testing in total – split evenly between sessions in Barcelona and Bahrain. This year, only the three days in Bahrain are taking place, giving each driver just a day and a half behind the wheel to get used to their new machines.
Understandably, most of the drivers would like to get a bit more experience with these 2023 cars before racing them competitively. George Russell pointed out that few other elite sports allow for such little practice before the season begins.
"Personally speaking, I don't think three days is enough, because you have got to remember from a driver's perspective, that is one and a half days per driver," said the Grand Prix Drivers' Association director.
"We were fortunate to do the [filming days] last week, but had we not, that would have been getting on for 12 weeks out of the car from Abu Dhabi to Bahrain. Could you imagine Rafael Nadal spending 12 weeks without hitting a ball and then going straight into the French Open with one and a half days of training? You know, it just wouldn't ever happen.
"I think three days with two cars would probably be a good place to be. And I think that would probably be the best compromise for all of the reasons why we're trying to limit it but right now one and a half days per driver I think is too few."
Russell is far from the only one to make a similar point, but not everyone agrees. Red Bull team principal Horner would even go as far as to suggest that just two day would be ample preparation before getting into the competitive action.
He told reporters: "No, I mean, look at the reliability we've had this morning, I think we had one red flag very early on that was rectified pretty quickly. And these regulations are pretty stable. I mean, one could even argue the opposite.
"When you look at the reliability and so on, you could almost say with the amount of races that the promoters are looking to cram in now, why not go two days of testing and then go racing? Because if that does create a little bit of a more mixed field at the beginning of the season, is that such a bad thing? And you've got the year then to sort it out.
"2026 is a very different prospect, because obviously, everything is new in terms of the concept of engine and chassis, but with the current regulations, I think three days is ample, plus with what we discussed in the [F1] Commission about filming days."
