{"id":398143,"date":"2025-09-04T20:26:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T20:26:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/398143\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T20:26:20","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T20:26:20","slug":"some-races-are-too-long-formula-1-has-to-evolve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/398143\/","title":{"rendered":"Some races are too long \u2014 Formula 1 has to evolve"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Russell believes the prospect of shortening some Formula 1 races to cater for younger viewers could be good for the sport.<\/p>\n

Stefano Domenicali, Formula 1\u2019s chief executive, told Autosport this week that the possibility of shortened grands prix, reverse-grid sprint races and fewer of the traditional three-practice session weekends were all being discussed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing on many of our channels that highlights do very well,\u201d Domenicali said, suggesting that races could be \u201ctoo long for younger audiences\u201d. He added: \u201cFor those of us who grew up with the current format, everything is fine as it is, but there\u2019s a large segment that only wants to see the key moments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThings are going very well today, but precisely for that reason we must not rest on our laurels. We need to think about the next step.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Stefano<\/p>\n

Domenicali says that the new audience want to see more action<\/p>\n

BRADLEY COLLYER\/PA<\/p>\n

The length of grand prix races varies depending on the track, weather conditions and any yellow flags or safety cars which occur. Russell is open to the idea of making some shorter. <\/p>\n

\u201cI do feel some races, potentially, are maybe too long,\u201d the 27-year-old Mercedes driver said. \u201cIf you look at a race in Monza, it is an hour and 15 [minutes], whereas a race in Singapore can be almost two hours. So that also makes a bit of sense [to shorten some]. I do trust in Stefano and the team, and I\u2019m very much open to new ideas, and I always want to give it the benefit of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do feel we have to evolve, because the sport is changing, and I\u2019m very open to new ideas. I feel that you always have to give it a chance before you dismiss anything. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was never a major fan of sprint races. Now I actually prefer them over usual grands prix. It makes every on-track activity much more meaningful, whereas some Fridays feel slightly redundant, with teams running high fuel, low fuel, high power, low power. It just feels like a bit too much unnecessary time on track.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Formula<\/p>\n

A traditional grand-prix race weekend involves three hour-long practice sessions, qualifying and a race<\/p>\n

GETTY<\/p>\n

A traditional grand prix race weekend involves three hour-long practice sessions, qualifying and a race. A sprint weekend includes only one practice session, before sprint qualifying, a 100km sprint race, and then qualifying and the main race.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur surveys show the vast majority of the audience wants the drivers to fight for a result,\u201d Domenicali added. \u201cTo put it bluntly, they\u2019re tired of free practice. That\u2019s an objective fact we can\u2019t ignore. I\u2019m being a bit provocative, but free practice appeals to super-specialists; people who want to see more action prefer a sprint weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not everyone is as open to the potential changes as Russell. Fernando Alonso said it is a \u201cproblem with society\u201d that there are now shorter attention spans, adding that no one was calling for 60-minute football matches, while Kimi Antonelli believes it would only exacerbate the problem of one-stop strategies producing predictable racing.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s Monza Grand Prix will be a traditional format, while there are three more sprint races (in Austin, Brazil and Qatar) before the conclusion of the season. Lewis Hamilton has a five-place grid penalty to serve in his first Italian Grand Prix for Ferrari having failed to slow \u201csignificantly\u201d for yellow flags on his way to the grid in Zandvoort.<\/p>\n

Hamilton felt the penalty was \u201cpretty hardcore\u201d for the infringement. \u201cI did lift. Just to their mind not enough. To get the penalty and [licence] penalty points was pretty hardcore. Not great when you\u2019re going into your first Monza GP for Ferrari, but it gives me more to fight for,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"Lewis<\/p>\n

This will be Hamilton\u2019s first Italian Grand Prix racing for Ferrari<\/p>\n

XPB\/ALAMY<\/p>\n

Last week the seven-times world champion pledged to enjoy the second half of the season more after a difficult start to his time at Ferrari, and admitted the pressure he has faced has made that harder than anticipated.<\/p>\n

It is understood that while Hamilton was aware of the implications of his move to Ferrari, it has been even bigger than he expected, as he has experienced in many moments like the fans which greeted him outside of the Maranello factory this week \u2014 something which he has never witnessed at other teams in his career. He attended a sponsor event in Milan with Ferrari on Wednesday evening in front of around 7,000 fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is clearly so much love for this brand, and to be in Milan in the heart of it all and to see how passionate they all were, it was intense, and I really tried to harness all the positive energy they gave us.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year has been tough for everyone\u2026 there\u2019s the culture difference, and Fr\u00e9d [Vasseur, team principal] made a comment that they perhaps underestimated what it would mean for me joining the team, and the year we\u2019ve been faced with, in terms of the problems with the car.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, Williams have lodged an official right of review to the FIA over Carlos Sainz\u2019s 10-second penalty for a collision with Liam Lawson last weekend. They believe they have new evidence which shows Sainz should not have been penalised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"George Russell believes the prospect of shortening some Formula 1 races to cater for younger viewers could be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":398144,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[4199,707,4200,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-398143","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115147911101400196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=398143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/398143\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/398144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=398143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=398143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=398143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}