Williams deputy boss Claire Williams believes Formula 1 should revert to have more on-track testing days both prior and during the season.
For 2020, it was agreed to reduce the amount of winter running from eight days to six to accommodate the 22-race calendar that was formed for this year.
However, despite a huge amount of running completed by every team, as the last day winds down in Barcelona, Williams admits she’d like more.
“I understand it from a cost control perspective,” Claire said via RaceFans. “But I think when you only have six days of pre-season testing to do everything that you need to do going into the first few races of the year, it’s not enough.
“And we’re a team that might expect to be on the other side of the fence because it’s cheaper, but actually it’s not the end of the day.
“Regardless of any issue that we might have or may have faced this year or last year, we would be in favour of having more days of pre-season testing. Not a lot, but maybe two or three more days would be very helpful.”
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Because of the restricted track time, only Alfa Romeo has opted to give their reserve, and former Williams, driver Robert Kubica time in the car, taking the first morning of both tests.
And the lack of opportunities for reserve and young drivers is a problem.
“There’s an issue that we’re probably all facing at the moment in that not having enough days for testing means that there’s very limited opportunity to run young drivers,” said Williams. “And I think that’s a limiting factor for the sport.
“Certainly for a team like ours that enjoys nurturing young talent, we have very little opportunity to actually put young talent in the race car. So if you can’t put them in the race car, how can you evaluate them?
“Therefore, are you thereby creating a scenario where it’s actually very difficult to bring new talent into Formula 1 from the junior formula. For me and for Williams, that feels like a bit of an issue that we probably need to address.”
In addition to less winter testing, testing during the season has also been cut and while that may be more manageable with this year’s cars, the Williams boss does see it as an issue next year.
“Not having any in-season testing makes it difficult from a development perspective when you’re not doing as well as you’d like on the race track,” Claire explained.
“Having a couple of extra days, regardless of the cost of that, would be important to evaluate test items.
“Particularly in 2021, with these new regulations, if you don’t get it right, you’re going to be almost locked into a scenario that you don’t want to be locked into for 22 races.”
