Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsForce India

Hulkenberg wants reduced practice in F1

Nico Hulkenberg believes it would be better for F1 if there was less practice time for drivers on a race weekend.

The current format sees team get two practice sessions of 90 minutes each during Friday before a third one-hour session on Saturday morning ahead of qualifying. With four hours of track time before the first competitive laps, Hulkenberg says it would be more of a challenge for drivers if they had less preparation.

Following a Friday of wet running ahead of a predicted dry race at Suzuka, when asked if he likes the challenge of adapting on Saturday, Hulkenberg replied: "I think it's good, yeah.

"I’m sometimes of the opinion we have too much practice in Formula One. Two times 90 minutes and then on Saturday another hour, it’s a lot of practice. I think I would find it personally more interesting if we had a lot less like in GP2.

"Maybe not quite as little where you only have half an hour and then you get thrown in to the water, also then there’s a lot more emphasis and focus on the driver. Because here, sometimes if you struggle you have so much practice to get around it it’s maybe too much.”

However, Hulkenberg doesn't believe any other part of the race weekend should change, saying three days is required to build up to the main event of one race.

“No, I think we should keep it to one grand prix because there’s one main thing, one highlight. It’s mainly just about practice.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.