3-Car teams & Testing

[Manoah2u]

So something just popped into my mind. Dunno if it's thread-worthy or that it should be fused with an existing thread, but let's see here.

Now it is mentioned that there are several teams that have a contract with Bernie which commands them to field a 3rd car on the field should the overall field shrink to 16 cars - namely RedBull, Ferrari and Mclaren.

If i understood correctly, the 3rd car is destined to be a no-points scoring car and is intended to be used by a rookie.
Then again, I read about Bernie saying they could simply provide a 3rd car to Sauber and say drive this with this guy.
In other words, i'm not really sure on what the exact rules are in regards to this.

In any way, wouldn't the teams that run a third car - which would not score any points - have the perfect opportunity and thus a generally unfair benefit of having actually a test car?

Since in-season testing became banned, teams are struggling to try and develop parts. It's the pre-season testing, young drivers tests, friday practice and simulations that they use to try and compensate this, and in many situations, it doesnt work.

Now if a team like Ferrari would be driving a 3rd car for the entire season, and they aren't going to score points with it anyway, wouldnt this be the ideal opportunity to claim back this testing ban?
I mean essentially, whilst other teams basically only have friday practice to test new parts, the 3rd car could put ANY part on the car as long as it complies with regulations, right?

That essentially would mean thus they have an enormeous and generally unfair advantage over other teams since it's essentially a complete year of testing on EVERY track. thousands of miles of testing.......It would make the gap and advantage of these 3 teams compared to the smaller teams even bigger. Mercedes aside,
if Mclaren is going to run a 3rd car all season, and Force India isnt, then essentially, Mclaren has an unfair advantage of having a full years of testing compared to Force India who's going to have to do with friday practice with much lesser budget and means.

wouldn't that essentially destroy any form of fair competition within F1?

[j2004p]

Surely the Team wouldn't be eligible for the 3rd car to count towards the constructors but it would be unfair to exclude the driver from any points they accrue?

[Manoah2u]

Surely the Team wouldn't be eligible for the 3rd car to count towards the constructors but it would be unfair to exclude the driver from any points they accrue?

That's what i thought too and made me wonder about how points are given when a 3rd Ferrari would f.e finish 5th.

Does 5th position simply be left blank or does the driver finish 5th but does not get classified and the next finisher will shove up a notch? would be weird.

Sounds fairly logical to not get constructor points but do get driver points though.

Still, if the team decides they won't get WCC points they can essentially still say "the 3rd car will be a testbed for the 2 WCC scoring cars".

[bhall II]

[...]

In any way, wouldn't the teams that run a third car - which would not score any points - have the perfect opportunity and thus a generally unfair benefit of having actually a test car?

[...]

Yes. For a few years in the mid-noughties, teams that finished outside the top-four in the previous year's Championship were allowed to run a third car in Friday practice sessions for exactly that reason. And I remain convinced that a significant portion of Red Bull's recent success is owed to RBR and STR running identical cars from 2007 to 2010. Data is priceless, and I think it's for this reason that some teams are very willing to run a third car.