Formula 1 director of motorsport Ross Brawn says there is no question of trying out any new race weekend formats in 2018, even if the driver and team championships are decided before the end of the season.
Lewis Hamilton has been among those suggesting that Formula 1 could try out changes to the way a Grand Prix race weekend is organised.
Hamilton wants to see a shake-up to make things more exciting in future - perhaps involving reversed grids, an additional qualifying race on Saturday, and less time spent on practice.
But Brawn says there is absolutely no question of trying out changes over the course of the remaining races of 2018. He pointed out that even if the titles were to be decided before the final race in Abu Dhabi on November 25, there was still plenty at stake further down the standings.
"There has been some talk recently about if the championship is won then we could experiment at the end of the year," Brawn told Motorsport.com in Austin this week. "But the season isn't fully settled.
"Haas is still in a fight with Renault [for fourth place in the constructors championship], and there are other battles further back," he pointed out.
Such things are far from merely being a matter of statistical interest. The order in which teams finish the season decides how the sport's prize money is distributed, a matter of millions of dollars.
"We cannot mess about with the races," Brawn insisted. "The reality is that even if the championship is finished up there it is not finished all the way through.
"You cannot just suddenly jump in and say we are going to reverse the grids this week," he stated unequivocally. "[You can't say] 'We are going do this, we are going to do that'. It is too important."
Other proposals have been for a non-championship race weekend to try out new formats, but Brawn felt that computer simulations were the more sensible way to proceed.
"A non-championship race was one idea we had, but the implications of that cost-wise and all the rest of it were really severe," he said. "We have to find other ways to work out the impact of new rules.
"What would happen, for example, if you made it compulsory to have two pit stops? How would that evolve?" he asked. "We need the tools to develop it and see what happens, not just jump into it because we think it is a good idea."
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