Drivers complain of 'little improvement' after shortened GP weekends
F1 News
- GPblog.com
With the long 2022 calendar consisting of no less than 23 races, F1 has decided to make things a little easier for the drivers by eliminating the 'Thursday obligations' at the circuit. The drivers only appear to be still dissatisfied.
Liberty Media has a lot of ambition and wants to make Formula 1 bigger and bigger. One of the ways they are trying to do that is to add races to the calendar. With a record of no less than 23 races this year, there were complaints from the teams and the drivers. All employees of the F1 teams are complaining about too little free time during the season.
GPDA sends letter
For this reason, this year Thursdays have been officially cancelled for drivers and all team members so that there is some more free time between races. In practice, this only seems to provide little improvement, reports De Telegraaf. Little has changed and on Thursdays, the drivers still work numerous interviews and PR obligations. The drivers' union GPDA has sent a letter in which they express their dissatisfaction with the new format. Further consultations will take place this weekend in Imola.
The biggest changes made when implementing the new format are the FIA press conferences which have been moved to Friday. As a result, Thursday is completely free of FIA obligations. The solution for a free Thursday will therefore in all likelihood lie with the teams themselves and the agreements they have with their sponsors. It is therefore expected that we will hear more about this later this weekend.