With the Japanese Grand Prix set to take place over two days, Daniel Ricciardo and Romain Grosjean have suggested making it the norm.
As Typhoon Hagibis passed nearby Suzuka, the decision was taken not to close the circuit and instead, for the fifth time, qualifying and the race will both happen on Sunday.
But as F1 currently discusses an overhaul for 2021, including possible format changes, Ricciardo thinks a short weekend would be a good way of countering one of Liberty Media’s ambitions.
“You can get enough done in two days and shorter weekends,” the Renault driver said via Crash.net.
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“With 22 races next year, instead of being at a weekend for five days, arrive Wednesday and leave Sunday or Monday, to shorten it by a day would be nice.
“It would make the 22 races more doable,” he admitted, with that number possibly reaching 25 in the future. “As F1, we do too much practice. I don’t think we need four hours.
“A lot of the time we are limited by tyres as well. I’d be happy to have a bit less track time and squeeze it in.”
Romain Grosjean agreed that the altered schedule in Japan also made practice more meaningful and the Frenchman thinks a full implementation would be positive for F1.
“We went for it in FP2. We actually used a good engine mode and actually I thought it was a really good format,” he said.
“If it is only Saturday and Sunday, with FP1 on Saturday morning and FP2 in the afternoon but setting the grid for the race it would be good.
“You have to push, you have a good amount of tyres, and you can still fine-tune the car, there is also the curfew in the evening so the mechanics don’t go to bed too late.
“You could change a little bit the setup between qualifying and the race so you can make it optimum for both sessions,” he suggested. “I actually quite enjoyed it.
“If it needs to be changed I wouldn’t mind seeing that. An hour and a half, you’ve got tyres, you’ve got time. You need to do the long run in the afternoon, it is a more representative one but you also want to set some fast laps.
“There is a lot of action on track, there is a lot of cars running, so if you really need to push it over two days I think it makes sense.”