During a media conference at F1 Testing, George Russell of Mercedes and Lando Norris of McLaren were asked had they tested following another car.

The 2022 regulations were aimed to create closer racing. One potential drawback could be a less powerful slipstream compared to the cars from last year. 

Russell, who was behind Norris when trying to overtake him, said: "I think the following has been improved but the slipstream effect has been reduced quite substantially." 

He continues, "I don't really know, you obviously need that delta on the straight to be able to overtake as you can really only overtake at the end of a straight into the corner.

"I think we can follow closer but from what we've seen the slipstream effect is definitely less effective so we'll have to wait and see."

Russell concludes, "I got behind Lando and I was a car length or two behind him and i couldn't catch him down the straight so that was slightly concerning." 

Norris added about the battle: "Me and George had a perfect demonstration of it. i didn’t want to let him past while he was on a quick lap, so I screwed him over and had him off a bit. That’s what you do in testing."

“George said it correctly – I definitely think the following part in the corners is an improvement. How much exactly is hard to know, because you’re always on different fuel levels and tyres and stuff.

“And maybe when there are two, three, four, five, six cars ahead it could be quite different again.

“But all of this obviously comes with the deficit of a slipstream effect, and how much that is going to be helping us. So, we can follow closer, but then the slipstream is worse, so there is positive and a negative from it.

“Don’t know which one is the bigger effect at the minute, so we’ll have to wait and see until the first race.”