Fewer free practice sessions on Fridays in 2015?

The Friday morning free practice session could be eliminated in 2015 with the aim of reducing costs. Currently, teams participate in two 90-minute practice sessions on Friday, and the goal would be to eliminate the Friday morning session.

The weekends would then go from four days – Thursday (a day reserved for operations on the circuit, in particular), Friday, Saturday, and Sunday – to three days, thereby reducing costs associated with racing – according to the BBC, a lap would cost 1000 euros from an engine perspective – and hotel accommodation costs, in particular. This would also help better manage the future transition from 5 to 4 power units in a season, by reducing the kilometers covered.

According to the BBC, these changes have been accepted by the strategic group – composed, from the teams’ side, of Ferrari, Red Bull, McLaren, Mercedes, Williams, and Lotus – and they could also be ratified by the end of the month if they are approved by the Commission and the FIA World Motor Sport Council, which are scheduled to meet in the coming weeks.

One of the Mercedes team leaders, Paddy Lowe, commented on the subject: « The aim is to significantly reduce the workload on the cars throughout the weekend and the use of parts – particularly power units, which are one of the major expenses for the teams, especially for the smaller ones. So that was the idea and it still needs to be finalized. There’s a month to sort things out and approve the measure. The concept was to save money, but if the teams don’t believe it will save money, things might be reconsidered. »

Even though track time, especially for testing new parts, is already limited in F1, Pat Fry – the technical director of Scuderia Ferrari – believes that it will not impact car performance: « From a technical standpoint, you will need to think about how to handle this, so you’ll need to do your homework a bit better. We typically test parts in one session and tires in another, and we’ll need to find a way to combine the two. Several years ago, when we removed the warm-up and implemented Parc Fermé, people said, ‘oh my god, we’ll never manage,’ and now it’s nice to be able to sleep on Saturday night rather than work until Sunday. So you just have to adapt, do a bit more preparation, and perhaps trust the wind tunnel and simulator results more. »

However, this measure is not unanimous, particularly from the Sahara Force India team, as technical director Andrew Green explained: « From Force India’s point of view, we do not see this as a measure that can help reduce costs. We are always looking to use Free Practice 1 to launch new young drivers, and it’s a source of revenue for us, and if we lose that, it would be a hard hit that would affect our technical capabilities. In this regard, I don’t see it as a cost reduction. »