F1 testing's MADDEST moments from sandstorms to fake car parts

Daniil Kvyat is shown next to a snowman to the backdrop of a sandstorm — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 Testing 2026

F1 testing's MADDEST moments from sandstorms to fake car parts

There have been some great moments in F1 testing

Dan Ripley Global Editor

Professional F1 journalist and analyst

Wednesday 18 February 2026 10:55

If you haven't already figured this out, Formula 1 testing is incredibly boring to watch.

For instance if there are 24 hours of coverage in a week, you will be hard pressed to find 10 minutes of that worthy of a highlight reel, and even then it will be a car doing a minor spin.

But despite this absolute chore, it's not all bad (although it mostly is!). In fact Lewis Hamilton gave us a laugh for the testing ages this week, when poor old Sam Collins at F1 was rather let down when the British star's Ferrari didn't quite do what Collins (and in fairness everyone in F1) was expecting it to.

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So, with that in mind here are some of F1's maddest moments during testing that have lasted long in the memory.

Prost are quickest!

The 2000 season was nothing short of a nightmare for the Prost team. Targeting race victories, a poor car let down by an even poorer Peugeot engine meant they did not even score a point despite boasting the talented pairing of Jean Alesi and Nick Heidfeld.

There was hope when team boss and four-time champion Alain Prost grabbed customer Ferrari engines for 2001. Improvements were expected but not to the tune of ending 12 days of testing in Barcelona with Alesi as the fastest car by nearly a second!

But if Alesi thought he was in a title battle, it couldn't have been much worse. Prost ran a light car to get quicker times in a desperate attempt to attract sponsors. Reality soon bit during the season when the team only recorded three points finishes all year before they collapsed at the end of it.

Prost's times were incredible in 2001 testing... then they had to put fuel in the car

Brawn are quickest!

With Prost in mind there were raised eyebrows when Brawn effectively turned up out of nowhere in 2009 to obliterate everyone and finish pre-season testing as the fastest car.

The issue was that Brawn were the phoenix from the ashes of the former Honda team saved at the last minute after the Japanese manufacturer pulled out of F1 at late notice in 2008, to the point they had already designed a car for 2009.

Of course with that in mind, Brawn had a Honda shaped engine gap that had to be filled. After cramming in a Mercedes engine like British rail passengers on a train in rush hour, the pitlane jaws dropped when a team that had been hopeless for the previous two seasons became the team to beat. Brawn's early season advantage was enough to see them win the drivers' championship with Jenson Button and the constructors' championship before becoming Mercedes.

Red Bull's stickers for parts

Red Bull pulled everyone's pants down in 2010, and not just in Abu Dhabi when Sebastian Vettel won the world championship on the first day he ever led it. During testing prior to the season design guru Adrian Newey helped the team work towards a blown diffuser concept that would lay the groundwork for their 2011 domination.

The trouble was if it was shown in testing, everyone would jump on quickly. So Red Bull made actual exhaust stickers to put on the car to put everyone off the trail of where it was really. Of course close up it was noticeable, but out on track.... not so much.

Red Bull test without front wing

Nothing fake about this one, with Daniil Kvyat spending one of his days testing the Red Bull without a front wing. Was this another genius move from Newey and Red Bull? Had they gamed the system in not needing a front wing?

No is the answer. Instead it was because the Russian broke his front wing on the first day. Without a replacement lined up, it meant he had no choice but to run a reduced speed run for the rest of the day. No wonder they moved on to Max Verstappen little more than a year later.

Snow in F1

You think you have seen all the weather in F1. Bright sunshine, light drizzle, torrential downpours - but one thing no team prepares for is snow. And that's exactly what they got in Barcelona in 2018.

Slight caveat to this is the track itself was unaffected by the snow, even if everything around it was. That didn't make it easy to drive on though. Wet tracks and freezing cold temperatures are not the type of conditions an F1 car was built for.

Only a few drivers took to the slushy track, with more time spent on building a trackside snowman with Mercedes logos for buttons. Time well spent.

Sandstorms in F1

Obviously if you want to avoid snow, you go testing in a Bahrain desert. Good news is that it's barely been cold enough to snow there since 1964. Bad news is that puts you in sandstorm territory.

So you know where this is going. This sandstorm in 2021 wasn't quite strong enough to curtail running, which is fortunate because we got some absolutely brilliant shots of cars barely visible on a straight to due to the sand being swept up on the track. There was also the neat sight of sand spraying away from the F1 car like it was going through water.

Of course the teams learn very little with such reduced grip due to effectively driving on marbles, but it was probably the best spectacle of that year's testing.

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Written by

Dan Ripley - Global Editor

I've been a massive F1 fan since the mid 1990s and continued to study the history of the sport long before that. Being part of GPFans has allowed me to work with a diverse team with all sorts of different backgrounds in watching the sport and given me a greater appreciation of F1.

View full biography

F1 Testing