(Motorsport-Total.com) – While Carlos Sainz was the first Formula 1 driver to drive on the new Madring in Madrid, the Ferrari SF-26 was now the first Formula 1 car to officially inaugurate the 5.416-kilometer track around the IFEMA exhibition center of the Spanish capital.
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Charles Leclerc piloted the Ferrari on Thursday morning during a so-called filming day. The vehicles must use Pirelli demo tires and are allowed to cover a maximum distance of 200 kilometers.
Ferrari was clever in booking the track, as the asphalt and pit facilities are already completed, while the other infrastructure of the state-of-the-art facility is still under construction.
Leclerc’s first exit from the pits was accompanied by a cloud of white dust that rose before he turned onto the “Fast Lane,” the only section of the pit lane that had already been cleaned, while the track was gradually being cleaned.
The Scuderia gains a competitive advantage through the test: The drivers can familiarize themselves with the ideal lines of a track where no one has driven before, and the engineers can collect important telemetry data for tuning and developing optimal strategies in electronic management.
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Furthermore, the data on the roughness and grip of the asphalt are valuable for updating the track model in the simulator. Especially with new facilities, the available information is usually very inaccurate. In the afternoon, Lewis Hamilton is expected to take over the SF-26.
But why is Ferrari allowed to test in Madrid at all? In fact, Maranello has found a gray area in the regulations that does not prohibit conducting a filming day with a current car on a new track in the Formula 1 calendar.
Although the sporting Formula 1 regulations in Article B11.3.5 state that no test drives may be carried out on a track “if no championship race was held on this race track in the year immediately preceding the championship year.”
This applies to the new track in Madrid. However, these restrictions only apply to TPC tests, i.e., test drives with older Formula 1 cars. For filming days, which are regulated in Article B11.6, this restriction does not exist.
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