F1: Pirelli tyre test wraps up in Abu Dhabi

Not that they have much choice of course: the young driver testing is a significant slice of the authorised testing under F1's strict rules. And so the opportunity to get into a Formula One car is wonderful for the young drivers but it's even more significant for teams. Indeed, the main function of the test from the teams' point of view is not to find out if a driver had pilot the car around a track without hitting anything - that's already decided by their other racing experience. Instead, it's to find out if the driver can provide good feedback to the team because that's vitally important. There is only so much that modelling - physical or computer - can do, as borne out by Virgin Racing which was proud that its cars were designed on CAD and had not turned a wheel before they turned up to race. In truth, most of their development came from driver feedback once the season was under way.

But this year's test was extended and experienced F1 drivers went out to play, too. How much use that really was remains to be seen: it was hot, dry, dusty and so the teams now know how the cars behave on a track with long straights, hard braking and twiddly bits in those conditions with their new Pirelli boots. But they have absolutely no idea how the wellies will work because there was no rain.

Ferrari summed up the test: "No specific issues with the Pirelli tyres and a lot of data collected to work on in winter time."

Lotus Racing, getting ready to sandpaper the name off the cars, surprised everyone when Jarno Trulli, who has been bugged by technical problems all year, finished his test with a time of 1.44.521. To put that in perspective, his fastest lap in Friday's free practice for this year's race at the same track was 1:45.612. As the team retired the T127, in its green and yellow livery, the whole team was emotional. There remains much turmoil over the name and the drivers have not yet been confirmed. Even so, they continued to work hard in the tests.

That wasn't the case at Williams: Hulkenberg's departure having been confirmed prior to the test, Rubens Barrichello was the only driver to do the entire two day tyre test on his own. He said "We learnt everything about the tyre we needed to and have a good amount of data check out over the winter." But he's taking two months off and headed straight back to Brazil after the test concluded.

Image credit: Glenn Dunbar/LAT Photographic