Alain Prost believes limited testing will hurt teams in 2014 – Formula 1 news
Former Formula 1 driver Alain Prost believes that 2014 will be a tough year for drivers because of the fact that teams are only allowed to conduct a limited number of tests prior to the season.
Next year, all of the teams will shift to the 1.6-litre turbocharged engines and it will be interesting to see who gains advantage of such an enormous technical shift. Former drivers and F1 pundits are expecting a lottery season, but only time will tell
whether that will be true.
One thing is quite certain though that the teams will not get ample testing opportunities and some of them might end up having a lot of reliability issues.
According to Prost, “In the old days when we had the new technology, we were doing a lot of tests. Today, it is going to be only three tests at the beginning of next year. That is going to be one of the biggest challenges, it's very difficult.”
When asked to make a comparison of next year’s engines to the past, the four-time world champion said, “You cannot compare the turbo engines next year to the turbos we had in the past where we had an unbelievable lag. When you have extra power, the work
of the tyres can be a little bit different. The cars next year will be very interesting.”
Even though the engine changes will make a huge impact next year, one cannot simply rule out the importance of aerodynamic efficiency, as that will be one of the key factors to determine the championship.
Moreover, consistency will once again be important, especially if the season is a close one. Just like this year, all of the teams will focus on scoring double points finish in most of the races. However, that will not be an easy thing to achieve, as reliability
could end up being a headache for most of the teams.
Considering that, the midfield teams such as Force India, Williams and Sauber will be hoping for some luck, as they will once again be in a position to fight for victories like the 2012 season. Furthermore, smaller teams like Caterham and Marussia might
also manage to score their first ever points in the sport next season.
Tags: