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Brawn not in favour of changes to Grand Prix length

Formula 1's director of motorsport Ross Brawn has said he's not in favour of changing the current basic format of a Grand Prix race.

It's been suggested that an event typically lasting between one-and-a-half and two hours is too long for modern audiences. But Brawn doesn't feel that's correct.

He said the current duration felt right, and that he wasn't looking at changes to the race format in 2019.

"I think the length of a Grand Prix is about right," Brawn told Sky Sports F1. "It's not too long, it's not too short, it engages you.

"We want a grand prix to evolve and have its highlights and come together at the end," he explained. "So I'm not sure that we should be thinking in terms of changing a Grand Prix length.

But Brawn admitted that he is looking into propsals to overhaul other aspects of how a Grand Prix weekend.

"Qualifying works fairly well," he said. "[But] I think practice on a Friday is open to discussion."

Currently, two 90-minute sessions are held on Fridays, one in the morning and the second after lunch.

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Brawn said he was looking into "whether we need two sessions, whether we move to just an afternoon session."

Brawn explained that part of the impetus behind the review is Liberty Media's plans to expand the current Formula 1 season to 25 or more races.

"If we have an increased number of races, do we change the format to put less pressure on the teams to be able to do those races?

"The fans always come first," Brawn continued. "What do the fans want to see in a Grand Prix weekend? Getting close to the cars and getting close to the drivers is something we always get feedback on.

"Over a race weekend, could we do more to let the fans get closer to the cars? One proposal is to have open scrutineering," he added. "It happens at Le Mans and is a great event.

"All the fans come, the cars are lifted up and you can see underneath them. So we're exploring things of that nature.

"But I'm fairly conservative about the format of the racing," he insisted. "I haven't got any major plans on that at the moment."

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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.