Chapter 1: What happened during the first secret F1 test in Barcelona?
Hello everybody and welcome back to the B1 Podcast with Matt and Tommy. Day one of the secret shakedown in Barcelona.
That's right, the secret test is underway. How secret was it?
Well, we're going to get into all of that and more. But I think we need to, from the top, Tommy. Firstly, how are you? Are you feeling good that cars are back on track?
I am. I would say it's nice to see them, but very limited. I enjoyed the spy shots on Twitter and random people streaming the data, which then got shut down by Formula 1, which we'll talk about later. But yeah, crazy. What a bizarre thing. I've never experienced this in all the years I've watched F1. It's quite bizarre.
No, exactly. And secondly, and I said firstly a long time ago, but secondly, let's get into exactly what's been going on. If you've been living under a rock or if you're just not that bothered about Formula One cars being on track in January and you're like, well, Australia isn't until March. Fair enough. We're here to wrap it all up for you as best as we can.
So normally, obviously, without the regulation change, we will get a few days pre-season testing in Bahrain. That's what we would have if it was just another year of the same regulation set. However, because of the rule shake-up, we have still official F1 testing in Bahrain in a few weeks, and there's two sets of three days. But before that, right now, we have a five-day shakedown.
Shakedown, that's what it's called, shakedown. I don't know if it's because Bahrain have spent millions of pounds to be the people that are the testing place. Whatever it is, it's shakedown time in Barcelona. And within this shakedown, as much as it is five days... Teams are only allowed to run in three of those five days. So if they roll out the pits and do half of an outlap, that is it.
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Chapter 2: Why was the first F1 test kept so secretive?
Not half, even one metre. If you roll out the pits full stop, that means they have taken part in the day. And that's one of their three. And finally, no media or fans allowed at the Test and people were being kicked out. That's the bizarre one. It sounded like they had the secret service going around getting people to just basically remove them from the area.
That's the bizarre one, isn't it? Because in 2022, there was a new regulation change, albeit not as big as this one with engines and things, but a completely new kind of aero package and everything like that. Still, obviously, the hybrid engines changed, But they had, again, a kind of non-televised test in Barcelona, so that we were kind of used to. But back then, they invited the media.
They had photographers. They had everyone there. They weren't throwing people out that would dare stand near a tree near the track. And you could basically like, we were seeing lap times, we were seeing everything, we were seeing pictures, we could analyse things. Whereas this one, my word, I've never, never seen it so secretive. It was insane.
Right, shall we get into the first question? And it's as simple as this. Why is the first F1 test so secretive?
What are they hiding? What is going on in Barcelona that we're not allowed to see?
However, I guess we're not allowed to see, but clearly they didn't do a very good job of us not seeing because half of the day live timing was being leaked. So we were just chilling, doing a bit of a stream, trying to catch some information. Got that information, lovely jubbly.
But also, there were people around the circuit taking pictures with their lovely lens on their cameras, their long distances. And I'm just kind of sat here like, what is the point? It doesn't matter if they blow up. It doesn't matter if they stop on track.
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Chapter 3: How did fans and media react to the secrecy of the F1 test?
Who is going to be under threat here if we all had a little bit of eyeballs? Because if anything, it's made people want to see it more. When you hide it away, you're going to have these cheeky little photographers around the circuit. You're going to... And information comes out one way or another. So for me, it feels pointless.
It feels so utterly pointless to keep this so secret, especially when Formula One is still very lucky to be in this position where they have a huge fan base, a massive fan base across the world, thanks to Drive to Survive and everything else.
Why not use this as a way to hype up the season?
And they might even say, well, we are. People are talking about it because the secret is. So people are talking about it and they're getting hyped for it. I just think it's so, so silly and it makes no sense to me.
It's very silly. It is a consequence of their inactions. Formula One can't have it both ways. You can't hype up the sport like crazy so people are hyped for every single little detail in the sport that we love.
they're doing social graphics saying this is when the shakedown is and advertising when it's on and then basically going why are other people turning up because we want to see formula one cars it's a new regulation and it's this is the thing like as you say that the actual reason behind this is because back when uh we went in did uh testing before in a new engine era in 2014
The cars were so incredibly unreliable that maybe they thought it was a bit embarrassing. I mean, one, it shows that Formula One don't have faith in their own regulations because actually the cars were pretty good. We'll get into this later, but did way more running than expected.
And yeah, it's just embarrassing that they want to hide it because as you say, I think it makes it worse because you seeing a picture of a car breaking down, which will get out because there's people hiding in blooming trees and things with cameras and stuff and trying to find everything. you're more likely to receive misinformation and things like that.
So say a car breaks down on track, they might have got back in the pits and been out in five minutes, but it looks way worse to go, oh, this is a big story. Why is this car stopped out on track? It looks worse for them. So yeah, they're desperately trying to control the narrative and it's just pretty embarrassing, really.
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Chapter 4: What information was leaked during the secret F1 test?
There's so many of these things. They cannot think that you can have a secret test now. And if you can, don't plaster it all over social media saying this is when it is.
And I might be one of the few here, but it kind of annoys me rather than hypes me up. I want to see it because I'm interested in Formula 1 and I don't feel like they're giving us that opportunity to be able to see the first time these cars go out on track.
I'm not saying I need eight hours a day of full filming testing that we're going to get, not even the next test in Bahrain because it's one hour at the end of the day, but the one after that is going to be televised. I'm not saying we need full broadcast coverage.
Yeah, Bahrain, you can have your test. You can have your official Formula One test.
The live timing was quite nice. Yeah, it was. Anyway, let's get into the next question. Otherwise, we are going to rant on for a very long time. Gavin Curley 90 asks, do you think it was the right decision for F1 to block all media from covering the shakedown?
No, because clearly they've managed to get around things anyway. As you say, there were a lot of pages that were somehow managing to get a feed from the live timing, which Formula One shut down. And there's still people there reporting about lap times and information and how many laps people have done and taking pictures and stuff and stuff.
a Spanish page that looks like they're hiding in a tree somewhere and grabbing all this information on the inside so that they're obviously able to get it. And it just looks embarrassing for Formula One themselves that I knew we were cooked here when Formula One hyped this shakedown up and go... Formula One, Formula One trying to be this big media brand, aren't they?
Of like, we all come to Formula One, FormulaOne.com, F1, social pages. They're acting like this is the only place you need information now. Everything comes through us. And when I saw the first thing that they posted from the test when cars were out on track was happy birthday, Sergio Perez, I was like, we're not getting anything here.
Speaking of timings, I think this is where we bring in Soy Mota, who is, they're a Spanish media outlet. And this is the thing as well, when it comes to, you know, banning all the media, this, that, and the other, it gives advantages to some media that clearly have ins at the track or whatever it might be. And Soy Mota is,
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of blocking media from the F1 test?
You can tell they're at the track. And I know this is what people are, of course, going to want to find out. So let me run you down exactly from ninth to first. That's nine cars were on track. So in ninth place, Perez won. And the fastest day one. was Isaac Hadjar with a woman at 18.159. So Max just happened in the mud, Tommy, is from what I'm seeing here. Didn't do any running.
Yeah, didn't do any running. And that just shows that Hadjar is the number one driver at Red Bull now. So, but what we can obviously take from this is absolutely nothing. Okay, we're seven seconds a lap off. The qualifying pole time, you're going to say we can take something? Absolutely. Laps? Lap counters, are you about to say?
No, I can say that what you can take is that the cars, Formula One were absolutely wrong to think that the cars were terrible and wouldn't work because there have been very few problems and red flags from what's been reported. We have three red flags now in the morning session. Yeah, but that's not loads, is it?
No, it's not the devastating, we don't need to show anybody. Exactly.
So let me just compare for people that weren't around in 2014. So in that morning session, obviously before they switched the timing off and we didn't get to see anything, this is just the morning that I can see that Hajar did 44 laps, Antonelli did 56, Ocon did 67 laps. You know, the worst running was Colapinto in the Alpine that did 28 laps.
And you look back to 2014 and only six cars set a lap time. Two of them managed no time at all. They couldn't even get out the garage because the cars were so broken. Ferrari were fastest.
My goats.
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Chapter 6: How did the teams perform during the secret F1 test?
Your goats. They were terrible that year as well. Let's shut it. We won testing.
That's all that matters. They always love to win testing. We'll find out later whether they will again. But Ferrari, they did the fastest time and they also did the most laps, but only 31. You had Bottas in third, six laps, 18 laps, 10 laps, 15 laps, seven laps. And then like you say, the other two runners didn't do any running at all. So this is...
This data here is why people were so, and Formula One themselves were so scarred that they wanted to make sure this didn't happen again and thought it would be embarrassing. But not to go back to the thing again, but my argument is that how do you draw the line here? Because there's always teams that have problems in testing. Is it unfair on them if they don't work? Do you hide it?
Do you pretend, oh no, we can't show this team. It's like embarrassing. Like where do you draw the line? It's so silly that they're trying to
hide this because clearly in 2026 you can get information i do wonder if uh it's the it's the engine suppliers that have sort of pulled some strings together to not show yeah because there's not much gain i guess for them to to have especially if you are trying to develop an engine develop a car not a gain for them as a brand
uh to have it televised yeah it's all going to be if a certain engine keeps blowing up over the course of a day it's going to look terrible for them so i can understand from a if they've been sat around in their board meeting they're obviously going to push for this to not be televised just in case it was a 2014 um but yeah it's it's still this is the route they've gone down uh we're not a fan but of course we're not gonna be a fan we're formula one fans and uh it's of course gonna have a lot of negative sentiment around it yeah
Let's go to the next question. P1 Patreon member CaptainOvs3420. What are your thoughts on the fact that F1 cut the timing data feeds off for Barcelona? Not surprised in the slightest.
I think this was an oversight from them in the first place that they could... Clearly, there's been some sort of link between the live timing at the circuit and some sort of gateway or whatever is still running into the website of the Catalonia F1 live timing website or whatever it might be.
So I'm not surprised in the slightest and I can't be angry at them either for doing it when they have said all this stuff about it being a private test. They obviously did not want the live timing out there because... You can deduce a lot of things from a set of live timing data, because it literally says, stop running in pits.
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Chapter 7: What challenges are teams facing ahead of the new F1 season?
You could know who's broken down at all times. So I was annoyed, obviously, because I want to see the live timing, but I am not surprised, and... They have to go down that route. They can't go, yes, teams, we promise you a private test, but everybody can look at your live timings at all times.
I want to know what F1 were thinking, though, because I watched a video when I was trying to learn more information about this test because it was very secretive. And, you know, it was a reliable Formula One page, like accredited media, and they were saying, like,
there will be testing times and and you know they will be available so clearly that was the case you know they didn't switch them off from the start and people got in testing times at the end of the day potentially potentially but they're going to have the the monitors on aren't they and and for the people there even though it's secretive they're going to be there showing but what i don't understand is like formula one
can't have did formula one either see that these other pages were posting these timings and going yeah that doesn't look very good for us that people are getting their their kind of source elsewhere or did they really not think that this was going to happen like come on like formula one fans are the most obsessive like we know we are them like the most obsessive nerdy people we want every nugget of information we're you know we're there talking about like
Give me a mini box. I need to see this and this and that and stuff. So yeah, it's it's crazy
Next question, and a dog is now on my lap, so there's clearly been an edit, from underscore R2F1. Is it true there is a rule by F1 about how many pictures the teams can release this week?
Yes, I saw that. That was one of the most shocking things that I've seen, that basically teams are even limited from how much they can share, and they are allocated six pictures to basically share per day of their test, which is... Yeah, so modern and so very 2026, isn't it, to share six photos a day.
I can only imagine what their chats must be like prior to running. Like, right, what are these six pictures going to be? How many of them can be memes? No, no memes, six pictures. To be fair, though, they probably want to show as little of the car as possible with those six pictures. Because isn't that what the teams are constantly trying to do is hide what they've come up with?
I guess, especially at secret testing and no pictures are released apart from if you're in a tree.
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Chapter 8: What can we expect from the rest of the pre-season testing?
Here we go. We're looking at... Oh, my God. Twice in a year already, and it's only January. We always get it, don't we, where teams release their car that looks very much like a show car and then release something completely different. And the one kind of big talking point this year is that Red Bull have now showed what their actual car is like, the RB22.
and it looks very very very similar to the zero side pods that we saw on mercedes in 2022 they they barely have any side pods at all um so yeah very interesting to see that they've gone down that route will it will it work for them so far obviously they are fastest um but so far they are and for those of you that missed the live stream where we were live for about an hour and a half and went oh my god we're finding out hardly anything let's just leave
The second Red Bull went fastest, Tommy changed completely, put his But Daddy I Love Him t-shirt on and the hat and the cape. Yeah, we're so back. Yeah, you're going to be me this year. Like both of us are going to be just trying and sort of every ounce of hope we're going to be storing up ready for the start of the season.
I couldn't really do that because Ferrari did not run, as did Ferrari, Aston and Williams, those four teams.
McLaren, Aston and Williams.
What did I say? Ferrari, Aston and Williams. Oh, good. Perfect. Well done, Matt. McLaren, Ferrari, Aston and Williams were the four teams. Of course, Williams are not taking part at all. Aston Martin are actually going to miss a day. So they've said that Bruno's not happy at all.
Oh, sorry, miss a day in the sense of... Yeah, potentially. They don't even know yet. I think it's quite worrying that Aston Martin said we're hoping to make the last two days. That suggests that that's the minimum.
That usually means that's the best possible outcome is having two days of running. So Aston Martin, yeah, struggling again. McLaren, they said from a few days ago at least that they would not be running today anyway. The interesting part as well, I suppose, is that there's rain on the horizon for tomorrow. Then you question whether the teams will decide not to run in those conditions.
Obviously, it'd be quite useful data to get some wet weather running. But dry is, of course, where they get the best. And it's usually more dry than it is wet throughout a Formula One season. So they have to pick and choose these three days of shakedown very, very wisely. But then I've looked at the weather forecast and Wednesday and Thursday also look like it could have some showers in.
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