F1 teams decide on Barcelona pre-season testing

The Formula One teams have finally come to an agreement on the 2017 pre-season testing location, opting once again to go testing at Circuit de Catalunya near Barcelona. A suggestion from Pirelli to test at Bahrain has therefore been rejected.

Formula One's tyre supplier Pirelli had pushed to move pre-season testing to Bahrain. The Italian manufacturer wanted to get teams there in order to get proper warm weather testing to evaluate the wider tyres in compliance with the 2017 technical regulations.

While the decision was quickly agreed by a number of teams, including Mercedes and Ferrari, others were recently vocal that they did not want to get pushed into this move. Apart from the obvious logistic advantages of having testing take place closer to the teams' factories, it was argued that the move would imply a cost increase of nearly €800.000, something which Williams and Red Bull were not willing to pay out of their own pockets. Williams' Pat Symonds in particular claimed it would have a fairly large impact on the team, "contrary maybe to teams with much larger budgets".

However, after weeks of argumentation, the situation was diffused in a one-hour meeting at Circuit of the Americas, in between both free practice sessions. All team principals, along with Bernie Ecclestone and Pirelli, opted to go to Barcelona for both pre-season tests.

The compromise also means that the first in-season test, which was initially scheduled to take place at the Circuit de Catalunya will now take place in Manama following the Bahrain Grand Prix.

Pre-season testing is scheduled for February 27-March 2 and March 7-10.