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Teams told 2017 pre-season testing will be in Barcelona

The F1 teams have been told pre-season testing will take place in Barcelona despite a push from Pirelli to hold it in Bahrain.

Pirelli has been keen to get warm and consistent conditions during pre-season in order to ensure it has made the right compound choices for the opening four races of 2017. Next year will see new tyre regulations introduced, with wider tyres set to increase cornering speeds in conjunction with increased downforce from new aerodynamic rules.

The request had seen a split in the teams, with the majority wanting to stick to the original plan of carrying out the two pre-season tests at the traditional Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya venue. However, with Mercedes backing the Pirelli request, the past few weeks had seen disagreement over how to proceed.

Team principals met with Bernie Ecclestone in the Austin paddock on Friday and were also told by FIA race director Charlie Whiting that testing should take place in Europe. It is understood the FIA felt Pirelli will have had ample track testing time - following 25 days of testing with mule cars this year - to ensure it has a safe and reliable product by the time of the first race.

A compromise solution has provisionally been agreed which will see a two-day in-season test take place after the Bahrain Grand Prix, which is currently scheduled to be the third race on the 2017 calendar.

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.