Formula 1’s Motorsport Managing Director Ross Brawn has revealed he is working to see more teams offer Friday Practice outings to F2 drivers in an attempt to build up their experience.
Currently, only a handful of teams, usually linked to an engine partner or driver program, offer the opportunity for up and coming talents to gain important knowledge about the F1 operation both in and outside the car.
Given the stakes of a weekend, none of the top teams ever give up a session to one of their young drivers plus those teams with an established history such as Williams and McLaren.
As the season enters the final stages a few more F2 drivers are earning chances, including Sean Gelael at Toro Rosso and Charles Leclerc at Sauber but for Brawn that is simply not enough and could come with repercussions.
“Putting someone into F1 who hasn’t got the experience is a risk,” he told Autosport. “You have to prepare them as well as possible, maybe doing the Friday morning practice.
“Those sorts of initiatives are important before they get exposed. If they have a problem [and] they get into F1 the wrong way, then their careers could be damaged.
“I don’t think replacing Felipe with an F2 guy would’ve been very fair,” he added, referring to Massa having to withdraw in Hungary due to illness, “because they would’ve had very little time to get into the car.
“There’s a better-structured way of doing it, but that’s the sort of thing we want to do. Friday practice – we’ve started looking at more positive initiatives to get the young guys to have an opportunity to drive – that sort of thing [is] what’s being discussed at the moment.”
Brawn would also like to see more drivers use the motorsport ladder to generate a greater profile and fan-base which they can then take into F1, using one of the grid’s most popular members as an example.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we had a young guy coming in, he was a star in F3, a star in F2 and then he does a [Max] Verstappen-like entry into F1,” he pondered. “That’s what we want to see. By having those races at an F1 Grand Prix, the fans can start to engage with them.
“It has so many benefits – commercially and from a sporting perspective – that we’ve got to make it work.”
