What's the point of a test driver?

Gutierrez has been unveiled at Ferrari as a test driver, coinciding with a host of new Mexican sponsors for the Italian team, so the question has to be what is the role of a test driver in modern F1?

Massa and Alonso are two examples of how in the past a driver could go to a high profile team and learn his trade from a world class driver, in Massa's case he calmed down his tyre melting sideways style under the tutelage of Schumacher and then, after taking full advantage of unlimited testing mileage, take the seat of an unwanted driver, in Alonso's case the seat of Jenson Button. (Which he nearly did again last week)

What's the role of a test driver today? There is ofcourse simulator work to be done but the value of this is debatable. Kimi doesn't really bother with it even if he has to learn a new track and Ferrari famously struggle to get any of their off track developments to cooperate with on track gains.

So what will Gutierrez's 2015 entail? There will be no practice sessions for him, he will be left to do the publicity events, a drive up the famous hill at Goodwood and numerous burnout sessions in cities across the world in an out of date car. If he's lucky he won't embarrass himself like Verstappen and Kobayashi and crash the car in front of a bewildered crowd.

So Gutierrez gets nothing from the experience, surely his two years at Sauber have shown him to be no worthy replacement for Raikkonen, so he will sit on the sidelines like an unwanted sub until his sponsors no longer pay.

We need testing back in F1 to bring through talent in F1 and allow drivers to develop at a big team like Massa and Alonso did or we will end up with a field of GP2 drivers whose talents have not had the knowledge and race craft of this generations superstars passed on.