McLaren racing director Eric Boullier has slammed the two teams who blocked a motion to extend this week’s test in Barcelona as “selfish”.
After dealing with frigid temperatures all week, the situation only got worse on Wednesday as snow and rain washed out Day 3 with only five of the ten cars opting to leave the pits at all.
With time already tight to be ready for the first race in Melbourne later this month, it was suggested to add an additional day of running with the weather set to improve in the coming days but ultimately the bid was unsuccessful.
“To change testing dates, we would have required unanimity,” Boullier told Sky Sports. “It appears that two teams did not want to change the date yesterday.”
Those two teams are believed to be Ferrari and Sauber, both of whom have filming days booked at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya over the weekend.
On Wednesday, McLaren, with Fernando Alonso, was the only team to surpass ten laps and post a lap time so bad were the conditions but Boullier was left frustrated by the week as a whole.
“It’s obviously wasted money,” he claimed. “We spent the money to be here and the track is booked for two weeks anyway.
“We had the possibility to move that day to another one later. We know the forecast is better on Sunday or Monday.
“We need these eight days to offer a decent show on-track for race one, covering reliability issues and everything we need to cover,” he added. “That’s purely wasted money on selfish interests.”
Many have used this week’s experience to argue F1 must now consider returning to the Middle East for testing next year, where conditions in February are more representative of the majority of races.
“The cost is one of the elements of going to Bahrain, it’s not easy, but also the logistics,” said Haas team principal Guenther Steiner in response. “You guys have no idea how much stuff is coming here every day for the car. It’s brutal.
“If it’s in Bahrain you need to get prepared, it’s the same for everybody. But the next thing is, some teams would put a jet on every night to go back and forward.”
