Kimi Raikkonen believes the recent rain-disrupted US Grand Prix can serve as a prime example for turning Formula One race weekends into two-day events.
Heavy rain at Austin led to the cancellation of Friday’s FP2 and forced officials to postpone the traditional Saturday qualifying to an early Sunday morning slot. Despite the last-minute adjustments it required, the Ferrari driver sees a more condensed format as the way forward.
“We started earlier [on Sunday], of course, but for me it would be much nicer to run two-day weekends,” said Raikkonen.
“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.”
“If it’s planned for two days, things get organised and it’s all smooth… 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.”
Raikkonen’s wishes might come true as early as next season, with the FIA announcing “several exciting and innovative changes to the qualifying and race weekend formats” for 2016 after a meeting of the Strategy Group last July.
Newly crowned champion Lewis Hamilton had also spoken in favour of a reshuffle after a diesel spillage and poor weather conditions had truncated Friday free practice for the Russian Grand Prix.
Lewis Hamilton: Three-time F1 world champion
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