The development of sliding bearing materials mostly bases on the results of component tests, which are performed on bearing test rigs. This test principle allows for determining the seizure load limit. After the failure of the load bearing lubricant film, the breakdown, i.e. the seizure, occurs within a fraction of a second due to the high energy input. In post mortem damage analyses, it is thus not possible to eludicate the events that occurred in the material during breakdown. In the context of this work, testing methods of model scale size have been developed. These methods enable to display the events that occur in the sliding materials during operation and subsequent breakdown. Further, they allow for representing the breakdown behaviour in a high time resolution. The properties of the developed ring-on-disc model are highly representative of the physical component. For example, the lubrication, thermal and tribochemical conditions equal the ones of a component during breakdown. The new test method was benchmarked using standard sliding materials of different material design. The method is indeed capable of displaying the lifespan events under boundary lubrication of AlSn20Cu, CuPb22Sn2 and SnSb7.5Cu3.5. The resultant data allowed for generating models that characterize the events of these materials. These models are of sufficient quality as to allow for a specific material optimization of sliding materials, which have been often improved by a trial-and-error approach.