Red Bull team boss Christian Horner has called on Mercedes to support Formula 1’s proposal for reversed-grid races at the second Austrian and British events.
The delayed 2020 F1 season is set to kick off in Austria with a double-header event on July 5 and 12, followed by a race in Hungary and then a second double-header in Britain on August 2 and 9.
F1 has proposed using the second of the two double-header events to experiment with the race format.
A proposal put forward last week was to run a reversed-grid qualifying race on Saturday to form the grid for Sunday’s race. The order for Saturday’s grid would be formed by reversing the championship order, so effectively the slowest cars start at the front. The result of that race then makes up the grid for the main event.
Horner believes it would be beneficial to give it a go, as he sees little value in running two identical races at the same venue as would likely result in a similar result.
“I think you’re never going to get a better opportunity than the back-to-back races that we have at venues like Austria, Silverstone and potentially one later in the year,” he told Autosport.
“The problem is I think that if we just repeat the same format at the same venue, the result is likely to be very similar.
“I think we’ve got an ideal opportunity to try something different,” he added.
However whilst the majority were in favour of giving it a go, Mercedes rejected the idea and could therefore derail the plans which require unanimous support to be passed.
Horner understands why they would be against the idea, but has urged them to put aside their concerns.
“We’ve won the Austrian GP for the last two years so we have potentially as much to lose [as Mercedes], particularly at that venue.
“I think it [experimenting] will be an overall positive for F1. I don’t quite see the appeal being as large to tune in to a rerun of effectively the same event one week later.
“If there’s a different format that just makes it more appealing, more enticing and I hope that Mercedes will support this in the end. At the end of the day it is the same challenge for all drivers and all teams.”
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