Carlos Sainz has said halving a three-day test between two drivers is “ridiculously little” preparation behind the wheel before the season starts.

While the new Williams driver clocked the fastest overall time of pre-season testing in Bahrain, notching up 194 laps of the circuit in his time behind the wheel, he believes having extra testing days would be of benefit to everyone, not least the new drivers on the grid.

Carlos Sainz offers solution to ‘ridiculously little’ F1 testing time

Additional reporting by Thomas Maher

Testing in Formula 1 has gradually been cut over time and, while this is set to increase to three separate three-day tests in 2026 to account for the sport’s mass regulation changes, that will be an exception to the rule in recent seasons.

Sainz drove for the full second day of pre-season testing in Bahrain before handing the FW47 over to Alex Albon for the final day of running, and he admitted to a “weird” feeling knowing he had limited time behind the wheel for his new team before he has to drive in anger in a fortnight’s time.

“Yeah, big day, but not as big as I thought or as I expected it to be, given the conditions and the rain at some point in the mid-morning,” Sainz explained to media including PlanetF1.com in Bahrain.

“But yeah, feels weird that I got my day and a half and now I need to go racing. It feels not enough. Feels very little – ridiculously little – the amount of time that we get into our cars before going to a race.

“But as ready as I can be with a day and a half and this strange weather of Bahrain, but I guess we’ll take it and see where we are.”

When asked further about that view, and how that relates to the expanded rookie class of the 2025 season, Sainz expressed that for all the money spent on simulator running in Formula 1, there is no substitute for being out on track.

He added he is not “asking for too much” in this regard, and proposed a solution that would be incorporated into the budget cap, but wants to see more testing accounted for each season if possible.

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“I just obviously wish them all the best, understanding a bit their frustration with testing,” Sainz said of the new drivers on the grid.

“Because even though I’m obviously no rookie, that day and a half of testing, I think is frustrating for me too, but I cannot imagine even for a rookie.

“I understand how difficult that makes things and how tricky the start of the season will be for some of these guys. At the same time, if you could get that TPC [Testing of a Previous Car], also that is relevant, and that can still help a lot, but experience is experience, and you only gain that on track with a real car that you’re going to drive that year.

“I think F1, if I’m honest, could do a bit of an effort in trying to do a better job in how we how we go testing.

“In the end, you have a lot of teams spending infinite amounts of money in simulators. You have drivers flying to the UK from Monaco to go to the simulator, and I don’t understand why we get three days of testing, when all that money could be invested into, I don’t know, eight days of testing.

“I’m not asking for too much – eight, 10 days, where every team picks their places to test. It’s nice to have a collective test, I think this should stay, but my proposal would be to have put in the budget cap the number of days.

“Put in the budget cap the simulator also, and see where the teams want to spend their money. If it’s in the sim or it’s in 10 testing days, rookies would benefit, and I think F1 teams would benefit, because even though the simulators are good, they are not as good as some of the engineers or people tend to believe they are.

“So, I would always choose testing, and for these guys also, than going to a simulator.”

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