Former F1 champion hits out at Ferrari over ‘utterly pointless’ tactic

Guesting on the Stay On Track Podcast, 1996 world champion Damon Hill criticised the practice of running low fuel during testing to grab headline-grabbing lap times, branding it “utterly pointless”.

“The testing results, what they do is they cover the days and who is quickest and all the rest of it. And sometimes you get unexpected people are very quick. And it is nearly always wrong. I mean by miles. You suddenly see teams you don’t expect looking really quick in winter testing.”

Ferrari set the fastest lap across the five days of testing in Barcelona thanks to Lewis Hamilton, with the benchmark time posted in the closing stages of the final day.

Hill singled out Ferrari as one of the main users of the tactic, while praising Red Bull for their approach, noting how they consistently keep their cards close to their chest:“Ferrari are also good at doing this, it seems to me. They feel the pressure to just get a lap time. I think Red Bull are very good at keeping their powder dry and not showing their hand.”

Running across three days in Sakhir, the Bahrain test will see teams working with the C1, C2 and C3 tyre compounds, while intermediate and full wet tyres remain on standby in case of rain.

Approaches to tyre selection vary significantly across the grid ahead of the first official test, with some teams clearly prioritising softer rubber. Mercedes, Ferrari and Haas have all gone down a more aggressive route, each allocating up to 20 sets of the C3 compound.