Kimi Raikkonen would like to see Formula 1 adopt a two-day race weekend, rather than the current three-day format, following Austin’s mixed format which saw both qualifying and the race take place on the same day.
The US GP was hit by heavy rain showers, with the worst coming on Friday and Saturday which meant there was very little action on either day. However Sunday saw an action-packed day with qualifying in the morning before the race in afternoon.
Doing something similar with practice on the Saturday only has Raikkonen’s backing.
“We started earlier [on Sunday], of course, but for me it would me much nicer to run two-day weekends,” he said after the race.
“Then, for everyone, they could see cars running all the time, whereas now they have two practices with hardly any running, because we don’t have enough tyres or have to save engines – things like that.
“People don’t see a lot of cars running, so I think we could get everything nicely in just two days. As we saw, it was not too busy, it’s just a change from the routine we’re used to.”
The Finn would prefer to see practice reduced to two sessions on the Saturday with qualifying in the afternoon, rather than on the same day as the race.
“We could do the two practice sessions and qualifying on Saturday and then the race on Sunday.
“In a way, it’s quite nice like this, there are a lot of things happening and it’s more fun for everybody.”
He wasn’t however happy with the way in which F1 teams chose to entertain the waiting fans on Saturday, as team members opted to build boats, dance in the pit lane and breakdance.
“I think this is F1 and not the circus,” he said. “The people are obviously not happy when we’re not running but we cannot make them happy with whatever we do apart from running [on track].
“Sometimes, it’s no wonder when people start thinking about what F1 is, when these kind of things happen.”
