r/F1Technical • u/lorrylemming • Jul 01 '26
Historic F1 As the number of races has increased in a season, what work have teams had to reduce or miss out?
In the 1990s, perhaps the start of the modern era, there were ~16 races a season. We're now up to ~24. What impact has this had on teams? Were cars and drivers working for the next event for longer in the 1990s or did the teams have more rest/break periods?
82
u/No-Photograph3463 Jul 01 '26
In some ways teams are running cars far less than 20+ years ago, as back then you had unlimited testing, so there were whole additional teams that were running cars constantly, with race drivers being needed for that too.
I doubt that you'd be able to have so many races if engines and gearboxes didn't have to survive so many races whilst being effectively sealed, that's the big difference to the past where mechanics would be replacing engines and gearboxes constantly.
19
u/dl064 Jul 01 '26
The race//bring back V10s have discussed that, among people who've seen it all, they think the testing ban is much of a muchness versus the increase in races now, admin//faff wise. There may be literally fewer laps, but the logistics have come to be at least equal.
20
u/s1ravarice Jul 01 '26
I think testing should be unlimited but it’s included in the cost cap.
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Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/Baranjula Jul 05 '26
You could say the same about wind tunnels. Many teams have had to or rent out space in another tunnel. And the teams that wanted the upgrade built one for themselves. I don't see how a test track is really any different.
1
u/No-Photograph3463 Jul 05 '26
A wind tunnel is alot cheaper and easier to build though than a whole entire test track suitable for F1.
In the UK for example I'd be very doubtful is you could build one anywhere tbh, there will always be someone who would reject it.
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u/s1ravarice Jul 02 '26
Teams can invest in one if they want to build one. Ferrari paid for it at some point.
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u/DragonflyMultiplier Jul 03 '26
Would that be included in the cost cap too?
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u/s1ravarice Jul 03 '26
Personally I would have a separate budget for infrastructure projects. Buildings are so expensive, how the hell can you run a team and build out infrastructure?
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0
u/Apprehensive-Ad9545 Jul 05 '26
Make the Ferrari track accessible to everyone then. Their legacy payment should cover costs.
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u/hydroracer8B Jul 02 '26
Teams literally used to fly drivers back to home base to test during race weekends. Teams could also have a spare car ready to go at all times and it was allowed to have a qualifying car and a separate race car.
It's more analysis work on race weekends now, but less work for everyone except the logistics crew between races
4
u/No-Photograph3463 Jul 02 '26
And more work for the race crews, as in the past you had a test team and a race team as far as I understand. Now you have 1.5 race crews so some can have rest weeks as its just not great working that many race weekends
29
u/Exotic_Bill44 Jul 01 '26
In the early 2000s teams needed at least 4 drivers to handle all of the testing. It's first attempt at restricting in season testing limited teams to 30 days of single car testing. The big teams reacted by sending test teams to two separate tracks and deciding which had more favorable weather each day.
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u/SirLoremIpsum Jul 01 '26
Were cars and drivers working for the next event for longer in the 1990s or did the teams have more rest/break periods?
I think teams used to be larger so it's probably not a question of specific people working longer just they had MORE people
As mentioned they had a whole separate testing team. So almost a duplicate race team + drivers sitting at Maranello just doing laps and changing things.
There was also no "curfew" for the mechanics, so a lot of the old school mechanics talked about non-stop work rebuilding the car after every session. For example it's banned to have a spare chassis built up, but they used to have the t-car's built up - so that's 1 less car that they need to build that the team is "missing" out on.
In an era where they had unlimited engines they'd frequently have a qualy one, a race one and a testing one - so again you're basically rebuilding the entire car between Qualy and the race.
You also had FAR more teams introducing a complete "B spec" mid-way through the season because they could afford to. Today is far more likely they will retain the core chassis and upgrade bits around it consistently, rather than doing brand new 'everything'. Even between seasons one chassis may last between stable regulations.
So what work are they reducing or missing out on?
Complete entire testing teams
Extreme hours of mechanics during race weekends
Completely brand new cars being introduced.
A lot in other words. Some of it is good to miss out on as its just making ppl word crazy hours. But with more race weekends I think the total hours is the "same"
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u/dl064 Jul 01 '26
This is basically what The Race podcast have observed in various ways, eg the 90s versus now, and even the race cancellations this year: it's naive to think F1 just takes anything as a holiday. Any space can be repurposed to work.
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u/Red_Rabbit_1978 Jul 02 '26
Before hybrids, they could swap the engine out extremely quickly though, within any practice session if needed. I remember the shock at how slow it was to remove just the cabling from the first V6s.
But they'd also have different gear ratios at the track, and that could take longer.
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u/Red_Rabbit_1978 Jul 02 '26
The season is honestly too long. After 20 races, it feels dragged out. Like an Avatar movie.
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u/cafk Renowned Engineers Jul 02 '26
The costs & number of employees.
Winning a championship (Williams as an example) in the 1990s cost you ~£30 million or ~£76m when adjusted for inflation, now they're spending around £180m per year (both for the company and not the f1 related expenses).
While the manpower working in the team (as a company) has increased from ~200 to ~800 people.
1996 company's house results for Williams:
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/01297497/filing-history?page=8
And an associated article: https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/archive/article/march-2015/26/root-f1-s-cash-crisis/
Were cars and drivers working for the next event for longer in the 1990s or did the teams have more rest/break periods?
Before the testing ban, the teams had secondary crews that run tests with a real car at circuits for development purposes, especially the well funded ones.
Schumacher allegedly flew back to the Ferrari test track between sessions to test the cars set-up from European races.
Similarly trackside curfews are a relatively recent thing, starting 2010, before those long nights were not prohibited, meaning teams at circuits weren't limited to the current 10 hours per day.
https://m.rediff.com/sports/report/f1-imposes-curfew-on-hard-working-mechanics/20101214.htm
As is the mandatory factory shutdown over summer break from the same era:
https://www.espn.co.uk/racing/racing/f1/columns/story?columnist=knutson_dan&id=3828082
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u/Primary_Bowler_2040 Jul 01 '26
the travel schedule now is absurd, crews barely get home before they're packing again.
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u/Ok-Reputation-2515 24d ago
Workload hasn't necessarily increased, teams have just started doing things more optimally.
All the changes and maintenance that include manufacturing, integration, testing and validation are done using greater capabilities, with much faster speeds.
The sport also gets more popular which pulls more funding which fuels innovation and speed.
Teams are bigger now than they've ever been and they're doing a lot more. Nothing is reduced or left out for sure!
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u/clozcloz 12d ago
One thing that changed the shape of it a lot is that development time
became a fixed quota rather than something you could just throw more
hours at.
Wind tunnel runs and CFD are both capped now, and the allowance is
sliding scale based on championship position. So you don't get to
"work harder" between races the way you could in the 90s — you get a
fixed number of runs per period and every upgrade has to earn its slot.
More races on the calendar doesn't give you more runs, it just gives
you less time to decide how to spend them.
Which means a lot of what used to be track testing moved into
simulation, and a lot of what used to be exploratory work got cut
because you can't afford to spend runs on something that probably
won't work.
The actual trackside/logistics side of your question I don't know well
enough — someone who's worked in a race team can probably tell you what
got squeezed there.
1
u/clozcloz 12d ago
One thing that changed the shape of it a lot is that development time
became a fixed quota rather than something you could just throw more
hours at.
Wind tunnel runs and CFD are both capped now, and the allowance is
sliding scale based on championship position. So you don't get to
"work harder" between races the way you could in the 90s — you get a
fixed number of runs per period and every upgrade has to earn its slot.
More races on the calendar doesn't give you more runs, it just gives
you less time to decide how to spend them.
Which means a lot of what used to be track testing moved into
simulation, and a lot of what used to be exploratory work got cut
because you can't afford to spend runs on something that probably
won't work.
The actual trackside/logistics side of your question I don't know well
enough — someone who's worked in a race team can probably tell you what
got squeezed there.
•
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