Renault F1 managing director Cyril Abiteboul believes Formula 1’s new owners Liberty Media need to shake up the race weekend format.
Abiteboul believes Friday practice is effectively pointless and needs to be reconsidered by the new F1 owners.
It’s fair to say FP1 and FP2 are often pretty uneventful and the track is usually empty a lot of the time, especially when it rains.
Abiteboul feels Friday practice “does not play any role” and thinks a change to the race weekend format in F1 is needed.
We’re sure some teams would argue against him, with the amount of data and information gathered over the course of the two 90-minute Friday sessions.
But perhaps a new format could be brought in where an additional hour-long practice session is brought in on Saturday, between FP3 and qualifying?
Maybe this is Abiteboul suggesting a two-day F1 race weekend would be best for F1? Who knows.
Anyway, here’s what he told French publication Auto-Hebdo when asked what Liberty should change:
“Liberty Media should be given a few months to analyse the situation, before it can comment on this issue. But generally, the current format of the race weekend has to change.
“Friday practice does not play any role. We need to think about this, because there are ways to make Formula 1 more dynamic without spending money and without affecting the structure of the teams.”
The debate over Friday practice and whether it’s actually worth doing has always been simmering at a low heat, so let’s see if the new owners and new people in charge do anything about it.