As F1 enters its new regulatory era in 2022, with completely new car regulations designed to improve racing, the sport’s owner, Liberty Media, is also finalizing plans for a revised weekend format.
Since the planned schedule condenses the Friday training into the afternoons, this means that the regular media day on Thursday will be given up in order to shorten the events to three days.
Formula 1 bosses are keen to make sure the changes don’t limit media coverage, and Motorsport CEO Ross Brawn has announced that he is planning a unique open session on Fridays where teams will have to explain tweaks to their cars .
The revised sports regulations for next year already stipulate that the teams must declare a “reference specification” for each race weekend before the opening training session, which must then be used from the last free practice session.
Since the teams therefore have to register new components with the FIA every weekend in order to meet the new scrutineering requirements, Liberty sees no reason why technical developments cannot be published.
In a speech on Monday, Brawn said a key element on Friday morning in 2022 will be for teams to provide staff and their cars to go through any updates.
“What we do on a Friday is a big session for you [the media] to look at the cars and speak to the staff, “explained Brawn.
“We’re driving initiatives to get more engagement and better insight into what’s going on.
“So next year, on a Friday morning, the cars will be presented to you. The teams will explain the changes they made that weekend and they will notify the FIA of the changes.”
“It will create another nuance and a different interest in the sport because the technical side of the sport is very fascinating for a lot of fans.”
But while teams may be asked to explain their latest car updates, the nature of the secrecy in F1 would make the staff unlikely to be fully transparent about everything they’ve done for fear of rivalries Provides teams with valuable information.
The start event of the Formula 1 car 2022 on the Silverstone starting field. Nicholas Latifi, Williams, George Russell, Williams, Charles Leclerc, Ferrari, Mick Schumacher, Haas F1, Carlos Sainz Jr., Ferrari, Lance Stroll, Aston Martin, Nikita Mazepin, Haas F1 and Pierre Gasly, AlphaTauri
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
Tire experiments
Not only is Brawn looking to offer more technical insights over the next year, but he also says that F1 will want to try new tire rules on some races in 2022.
With F1 looking to make itself more sustainable in the future, F1 would like to see if reducing the number of tire sets available would negatively affect the show.
This year’s Formula 1 sprint race has shown the value of experimentation, and Brawn is confident that looking at rule optimizations this way for tires could be a positive thing.
“We are all trying to improve our footprint in many ways and logistics and tire usage are one of them,” he said.
“We hope that in 2022 we will have a few weekends when we have a reduced number of tires available.
“We think we can do it without affecting the show. But as you know, there is always the possibility of unintended consequences in Formula 1.
“Tim Goss at the FIA in particular worked very hard with Pirelli and the teams to come up with a suggestion on how we could evaluate a different type of tire use to reduce volume over the weekend. And that looks very promising.
“I think that’s something we’re going to do a few weekends during the season to evaluate. If it works, we can take it over for the future, or we can tweak it a little and move on.”
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