The winners and losers from F1’s aerodynamic testing reset  

Alpine may be languishing at the bottom of the standings and ruing its worst start to a Formula 1 season in years, but the team could be about to get a boost as F1 has recently reset its aerodynamic testing restrictions for the second half of the year.

In an attempt to level the playing field, Formula 1 introduced a sliding scale that alters the amount of aerodynamic testing teams can carry out depending on their championship position. The scale resets twice a year, meaning that some teams have their testing allowances cut, while others are given a boost to aid development. 

Formula 1 introduced the sliding scale for testing back in 2021, with the ATR cutting the championship leading team’s testing time by 25%, while the team at the bottom of the standings gets a 15% increase. The baseline allowance permits teams to carry out 320 wind tunnel runs and 2,000 CFD tests over a two-month period.

The amount of testing that teams can do may prove to be particularly important over the next six months, as the series prepares for a revolutionary new set of rules, which will hit F1 in 2026. 

So, ahead of the rollout of the dramatic new aerodynamic and technical regulations coming next year, this is how the grid’s current testing allowances stack up, with all allowances based on the championship standings ahead of the 2025 Austrian Grand Prix.  

Loser: Williams  

Carlos Sainz, Williams

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

Williams finished the 2024 F1 season in ninth after scoring just 17 points, but the Grove squad is already well clear of that point and had amassed 55 points ahead of the Austrian GP. While this means that it’s climbed from ninth to fifth in the constructors’ standings, this brings with it a dramatic cut in testing allowances.  

For the remainder of the 2025 season, Williams will have 90% of the testing allowance, which equates to 288 wind tunnel runs and 1,800 CFD tests. The change for Williams marks the biggest drop for any team, as the British squad was previously permitted to run 352 wind tunnel tests.  

Winner: Alpine 

Alpine will be hoping that its increase in aero testing can help it turn its fortunes around in 2025, as the French team sat 10th and last in F1’s standings ahead of the Austrian race. Because of its dramatic drop compared with 2024, when it finished sixth, Alpine will get 115% of the testing allowance. This means it’ll be able to run 368 wind tunnel runs and will have 92 hours of wind-on time.   

CFD testing will also be increased up to 2,300 items, in contrast to the 1,900 that the team could run in the first half of the year. The choice now facing the team will be whether to use this extra testing time to salvage something from its 2025 season, or pool all its resources on the new 2026 racer.  

Loser: Mercedes 

Andrea Kimi Antonelli, Mercedes

Photo by: Erik Junius

Mercedes had a torrid time in Formula 1’s ground-effect era, and this meant it racked up the testing hours as it tried to turn around its fortunes. The additional testing clearly helped, as the team managed to climb to second in the standings ahead of F1’s Austrian Grand Prix.  

This rise through the ranks seriously hit its allowance for the remainder of the season, however, and the Silver Arrows will have just 75% of the testing time afforded to other teams, so will have to make every test count. The squad is permitted 60 hours of wind on time in its tunnel – a drop of eight hours compared with the allowance it had for the first half of the season.  

Winner: Aston Martin 

Mercedes customer team Aston Martin is another team that’s set to reap the rewards of its misfortunes over the coming months. Thanks to struggles for its drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, Aston fell to eighth in the F1 standings ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, compared with the respectable fifth that it finished the 2025 season in.  

This means that instead of getting just 90% of the testing allowance, the British outfit will instead get 105% for the remainder of the season. As a result, it will now have 84 hours of wind-on time, up from 72, and 336 wind tunnel runs for the remainder of the season. With Adrian Newey onboard, maybe this is all the time he needs to turn around the team’s fortunes ahead of the new regulations coming in.  

Little change across the board 

Lando Norris, McLaren, Oscar Piastri, McLaren

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Sutton Images via Getty Images

For the other teams on the grid, the changes in their testing allowances are less dramatic. For a start, McLaren remained at the top of the standings from the end of 2024 until this year’s Austrian race, and is so far showing no sign of faltering. This means its testing times will go unchanged, at 75% of the allowance.  

Red Bull and Ferrari both moved down one place in the standings, at sat in third and fourth respectively ahead of the Austrian GP. This means they will each pick up 16 additional wind tunnel runs and an extra 100 CFD tests over the remaining three two-month testing periods this year.

Racing Bulls and Sauber, on the other hand, will each have a minor cut to their testing allowance. Sitting in seventh place, Racing Bulls will get 100% of the testing allowance afforded to teams, which equates to 80 hours of wind-on time. Sauber, meanwhile, climbed from 10th to ninth prior to the race at the Red Bull Ring, which means it will now get 110% of the testing allowance.  

An unknown quantity  

Formula 1’s rules aren’t the only thing that’s changing next year, as the series will also welcome its first new team to the grid since Haas entered back in 2016. 

Cadillac will join as a customer team in 2026 before rolling out its engine programme and becoming a fully-fledged constructor from 2029.  

But just because Cadillac is an unknown entity in F1, that doesn’t mean it will get free reign in terms of aerodynamic testing. Instead, the team will be awarded the maximum allowance ahead of its entry in 2026, which means it now has 92 hours of wind-on time and the ability to run tests on 2,300 CFD items – which is the same allowance as Alpine has at the bottom of the standings.  

The race start

Photo by: Kym Illman / Getty Images

Every F1 team’s testing allowance