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F1 pre-season testing is just around the corner for the 2022 season, and is one of the most intriguing parts of it, before the actual racing begins. Even though the exact order can never be predicted, pre-season tests more often than not do reveal a few crucial details about the teams.
If a team has a bad pre-season test, it's highly unlikely that it would turn it around completely and have a good season after that. In the same vein, if a team does have a great pre-season test it gives the unit a great baseline to build on.
Throughout the history of F1, pre-season tests have witnessed some of the biggest shocks even before actual racing began.
In this piece, we take a look at some of the biggest shocks during the pre-season test in the 21st century.
Times when F1 pre-season tests threw shockers
#1 Brawn GP (2009)
To explain how shocking the first impressions left by Brawn were, after its first appearance on the track, let's provide some context to this. The team was basically created at the last minute after Ross Brawn bought the unit from Honda at a token amount early in 2009. This was done because of the last-minute decision by the Japanese outfit to leave F1 amidst the growing global crisis.
The team didn't exist by the time the first pre-season test was over. And even when the team came into existence, there wasn't much expected from it. First, because it had a poor 2008 season as Honda, and second, because with Ross Brawn as the owner, the team would struggle to put together funds to even get through the season.
Yet, the first time Brawn GP made its way on the track, it left everyone shocked. Laptimes can be deceptive with a lower fuel load, but what wasn't, was how superior the car looked compared to the entire field.
The Brawn GP car was in a league of its own by the time the test concluded and it appeared that F1 had a new frontrunner. With the results of the first race in Australia, this became a reality with Brawn finishing 1-2 in the race.
Such was the early advantage for the newly formed team that its driver Jenson Button would win the first five races and wrap up the title by the 2009 Brazilian GP.
#2 Ferrari (2014)
The 2014 season was supposed to be the start of an entirely new era in F1. An entirely new concept of V6 turbo hybrid engines was to be introduced and a new set of aerodynamic regulations were put in place.
Rumors did suggest that Mercedes had an ace up their sleeve, whose cruciality was going to be anybody's guess. Whether Mercedes held an advantage and how big it was going to be compared to the rest of the grid was a question nobody yet had an answer to.
Pre-season expectations pegged the usual suspects like Ferrari and Red Bull to be right up there in front. When Ferrari unveiled its 2014 challenger, however, it didn't induce a lot of optimism.
The car was not one of the better-looking challengers, in a field of hideous-looking cars. Furthermore, when it ran during the pre-season test, the new V6 turbo just didn't sound right.
By the end of the test, it became apparent that while Mercedes' challengers looked amazing, Ferrari had messed up big time. The engine was nothing compared to the Mercedes and the car looked horrible on the track, even in the hands of both Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso.
Ferrari were clearly out of title contention and the team would struggle to even challenge for podiums consistently. The Italian team that had two wins in the previous season could only snatch a meager two podiums in the entire 2014 season.
#3 McLaren Honda (2015)
Arguably the biggest dud in terms of expectation-vs-reality in F1 has to be the Honda V6 turbo hybrid's debut in F1. The engine caught everyone's attention when Honda announced its partnership with McLaren. The partnership, which reached legendary levels of domination in the late 1980s, had made huge claims before even a single lap was run by the challenger.
Sadly, all the hype and anticipation came back to bite the team as the engine was shockingly unreliable. The team struggled with reliability issues throughout the test and could only complete a handful of laps around the circuit even while running conservatively.
After all the hype turned bust, it became clear that the much-touted partnership between McLaren and Honda had got off to a rocky start. The season proved to be a disaster as the McLaren-Honda combination turned into a sad tale. For the 2015 season, McLaren scored 27 championship points, six less than what the team had scored in just the first race of the 2014 season.
