Inclement weather conditions are likely to disrupt testing today at the Jerez de la Frontera circuit in Andalucia, southern Spain. The province has been hit by moderate rain this morning, which is forecast to continue all day at least.
The news is bad for all the teams, because it reduces the time available to be spent testing dry weather settings. Dry weather settings form the basis of a car’s performance because in a normal season the majority of races are dry. Similarly, wet weather cools tyre temperature considerably and makes the process of evaluating tyre performance more difficult. The tyre working window – the temperature at which the tyre peforms at its optimum – can be difficult to reproduce in early season testing anyway, as ambient conditions are not particularly suitable in Europe at this time of year.
The weather may be particularly bad news, however, for teams such as Toro Rosso and Force India, who are yet to test their respective new cars in fully dry conditions. Nevertheless, Ferrari, Toyota and BMW-Sauber, who tested previously at the Sakhir circuit in Bahrain, may relish the chance to get some wet weather mileage on their machines. Ferrari in particular suffered in wet weather last season, with a dire performance at Silverstone standing out.
