F1 has confirmed the reduction of pre-season test days to six and has removed the in-season run for 2020, owing to a larger calendar.
The compromise between the championship organisers and the teams was to reduce the test days if expanding the race calendar, which has been officially confirmed with the announcement of the pre-season test dates for the 2020 season.
With 22 races to be run with the inclusion of Vietnam and Netherlands, the pre-season test will now be of three days each, thereby making it a total of six as opposed to a total eight which took place ahead of the start of the 2019 F1 season.
The venue remains the same as Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona in Spain, with the first test scheduled for February 19-21 and the second one for February 26-28, with a four day gap between the two tests. The testing will be completed in the month of February itself.
The 2020 season is to start with Australian GP on March 13-15 and end with Abu Dhabi GP on November 27-29. The F1 teams though have less days at hand to prepare for 2020 as the 2019 season only ends on December 4 along with the post-season tyre test.
Along with the reduction of the pre-season test dates, the decision has been made to totally remove the in-season running, which was being utilised for rookie driver test as well. This should increase the Friday running with teams using it to test certain parts.
However, it remains to be seen as to how the F1 teams use their rookie drivers and if they get more chance in the FP1 sessions, which will carry superlicense points after the latest tweak – but it is limited to 10 points per season only.
Check out the 2020 F1 calendar – provisional
