F1 to discuss Saturday sprint race

Potential changes to the F1 race weekend format are set to be discussed at a meeting of the FIA and team members on Friday.

In a meeting with technical chiefs to focus on trying to define the 2017 regulations, the FIA and team members will also look at the idea of changing the current format to make the sport easier for race promoters to sell. F1i understands the main proposal is to add more value on the Saturday of a race weekend, moving qualifying earlier in the day and introducing a sprint race.

Discussions will also take place regarding a potential new qualifying format, while the current schedule on a Friday of a race weekend will also be looked at during the meeting at Heathrow in London.

A meeting of the Strategy Group last summer resulted in an announcement that "several exciting and innovative changes” to the race weekend format were being considered for 2016, but none were introduced at the time. However, new tyre regulations first proposed at that meeting have since been honed and implemented for this season.

The last major change to the race weekend was the introduction of the current qualifying format - which takes place over three sessions with the slowest cars dropping out each time - which was adopted in 2006. The two Friday practice sessions were extended from an hour to 90 minutes a year later.

GP2 and GP3 both currently run two races per weekend as an F1 support event, while DTM also features a two-race format. In IndyCar, there is currently one event per season which sees a double-header of races.

Scene at the Pirelli wet tyre test