The 2023 F1 season has drawn to a close after Max Verstappen capped off a championship-winning year with victory at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – but has the 2023 season actually finished?
Teams and drivers have not packed up just yet, as they are staying in Abu Dhabi for this week’s post-season test at Yas Marina Circuit.
It will take place on Tuesday 28 November and gives teams the opportunity for one last shakedown of their cars before they get stored away.
But as these cars are not being used again, what is the purpose behind the post-season test and who is driving? Here is everything to know.
What is F1’s Abu Dhabi post-season test?
F1’s post-season test is the last bit of track action for the year which takes place just two days after the Abu Dhabi GP season finale. It runs across the day with morning and afternoon sessions as teams try to extract every last bit of knowledge that they can get from the car.
Yet not all 20 F1 drivers have to partake. Teams must designate one of its cars to a young driver who has no more than two grand prix starts – similar to the FP1 rules. And this has therefore seen many F2 drivers, or those who are about to graduate to F1, previously take part in the test.
In 2022 Oscar Piastri tested for McLaren ahead of his rookie season, while Liam Lawson (Red Bull), Robert Shwartzman (Ferrari), Frederik Vesti (Mercedes), Jack Doohan (Alpine), Theo Pourchaire (Alfa Romeo), Felipe Drugovich (Aston Martin), Pietro Fittipaldi (Haas), Nyck de Vries (AlphaTauri) and Logan Sargeant (Williams) all drove the test as well.
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
Robert Shwartzman, Ferrari SF-23
The other car is for drivers with a valid superlicence and is designated for Pirelli tyre testing, so that F1 can learn more about the different compounds and how to improve for the following season.
Ferrari scored a 1-2-3 in 2022, as Sainz, Leclerc and Shwartzman took the top three spots (Sainz and Leclerc sharing the car) while Pierre Gasly and Max Verstappen completed the top five. As seen with Ferrari, some teams opt to run both drivers (one in the morning and the other in the afternoon) alongside a rookie but not everybody does that as the Scuderia, Mercedes, Red Bull and Aston Martin were the only ones to do so in 2022. So Alfa Romeo, for example, ran Valtteri Bottas alongside Pourchaire which meant Zhou Guanyu missed the test.
Nonetheless, it is pretty much a normal testing…
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