Canadian Grand Prix 2014, Montréal - Race 7/19

In recent years Friday practice is the only day I've been able to make at Silverstone.

The new FP rules would totally kill any idea of going for me. And as for starting later to allow people to go after work/school - wtf? Fine if you live 5 minutes from the circuit, but not great if you have a massive journey home afterwards, like I suspect a lot of people who only go on Fridays do.
 
Ive been silverstone every friday since 2009 and its always been absoutely rammed. Half the cars didnt get in a couple of years back. Would totally ruin the weekend and lose money for the circuits too. Another heroicly daft idea from senile old eccles.
 
Mr Jack said:
Doesn't seem a wholly terrible idea. Add in a couple of out of race weekend test sessions to allow a bit more testing and it's actually one of the more sensible cost saving ideas.
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They would also ban in season testing and limit pre season testing to just 2 sets.

Its a terrible idea. The pit lane is in use all Friday anyway as the support series use it, so they will still need to be there and setup on Thursday regardless. It would totally kill Fridays, yet I guarantee weekend ticket prices won't drop. And how the heck are any young drivers meant to get any testing time in the cars?

Its a pointless idea that is incredibly badly thought through. The way to save money with Fridays is to drop them completely. Screwing them up but still using them doesn't save anything and ruins it for fans. I'd never go on a Friday of it was just 1 session at 5pm, and I've been to Friday sessions of every F1 race I've ever been too so far.

Retarded. Utterly stupid and retarded, from a governing body totally out of touch with reality and seemingly void of common sense. Its time someone else took over governing global motorsport before the FIA kill yet another series.
 
I can't get my head around the proposal, it sounds retarded. I can't see how one session in the afternoon will save money. They say personnel can come a day late, but how?
And as said some teams test young drivers in fp1 who pay for that seat.
I don't see how it saves money.
 
Exactly. The event starts Friday morning. The team will be there. The only way to come a day later is to not run on Friday at all. But unless they kill off everything on a Friday the teams will still need to be setup by the end of Thursday.

Its 100% retarded.
 
Thinking about it more it reduces track time so could reduce amount of engines which is a big cost. but surly they'll just run engines at a higher rate, unless the rules limit engines even more.

Also with lack of testing FPs are the testing. Testing bans is making it harder and harder to solve bad cars.
 
Glaucus said:
Thinking about it more it reduces track time so could reduce amount of engines which is a big cost. but surly they'll just run engines at a higher rate, unless the rules limit engines even more.

Also with lack of testing FPs are the testing. Testing bans is making it harder and harder to solve bad cars.
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This is directly what the teams have said. Less time running means less wear and tear, less parts being used. With the engine being expensive it could end up meaning a couple less engines throughout they year which isn't insignificant.

I think it was Force India saying FP1 helps them make some money, from the way it was said I presume it means a lot of the younger test drivers are pay drivers that effectively pay a big fee for their chance to impress and get a drive.

There is also advertising, more time on camera = more potential for income. On top of that if lots of people completely give up on going to friday sessions because for one practice it isn't worth the trip then again there is potential for less money there.

I guess there is an argument to be made that with less testing time you might have more races where one or both drivers in a team can't get their car setup right and you have a little more variability. A merc which just doesn't handle right and has a difficult race.

More running is better for the fans, it's a spectator sport. Maybe, just maybe rather than cutting costs, Bernie and the people in charge can take a less insane portion of the profits and filter the money down to the teams better..... :o :o

More money for the teams, closer competition from the poorer teams, can't have that when Bernie can just pocket as much as possible.
 
But I don't see how it will use less parts, teams are allowed 5 PU, reduce running and they'll just crank up the power to maintain the same ware weight on the remaining sessions, and use all 5 PU.

And yes I bet most of the young drivers pay fir there tests. And when else will young drivers get any track time. Remove fp1 and you're unlikely to see any at race weekends, which leaves just two young driver tests in the year.
 
Glaucus said:
But I don't see how it will use less parts, teams are allowed 5 PU, reduce running and they'll just crank up the power to maintain the same ware weight on the remaining sessions, and use all 5 PU.

And yes I bet most of the young drivers pay fir there tests. And when else will young drivers get any track time. Remove fp1 and you're unlikely to see any at race weekends, which leaves just two young driver tests in the year.
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They use more than 5pu's for one thing. 5pu's applies to saturday and sunday sessions, not Friday. So they usually use an extra engine on friday(obviously they reuse this till it goes), and with potentially two long practice sessions this could be close enough to 2 race distances each friday.

On top of that the 5pu's isn't a limit, it's the most you can use before getting penalties, almost certainly some cars will get penalties and use more than that. I think quite a few cars, Lotus and others have gone through multiple parts of engines already due to failures.

But you have tires, gearboxes(not sure if the friday rule applies to them as well), you have wings that get broken, just about anything can go and if it goes earlier due to more running then throughout the season you use more.

But this is all a problem itself, if you can use rule free parts on friday, you see more pushing to find limits as teams will be less badly hurt by a failed engine. If they are looking after the engines because it's their race engine, they'll be turning down engines and simply end up being a bit slower in practice, a bit slower in qualifying and a bit slower in the race. I think being able to use a different engine on friday gives them room to try new engine maps that they worry might increase temps or wear and tear too much. Too scared to try it on a race engine but happy to test it out on a friday. Seen more failures on a friday(iirc) like the ers or kers going on a friday likely for that very reason. You usually hear commentators mention it won't cause a penalty as it's not a race engine. Reducing the amount of running/testing they can do on the friday without the worry about the engine is a bad idea in general. Friday is their big day for real testing of new parts and new engine modes and finding real speed, saturday becomes an engine saving mode.
 
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Hamilton/Rosberg putting in slightly sandbagging super soft laps on lower engine mode(it sounded like) so didn't gain, were faster just in the first two sectors but lost 2/10ths in the last sector which you'd expect with a lower engine mode. Should be a 1:14.xx in Q3 from Hamilton I think, maybe Rosberg as well.

I'd actually love to see Massa, Bottas or both at least in the second row as they have been pretty epic off the line. What could/would happen if they managed to go into the first corner ahead? Merc's aren't bad off the line at all but Williams have done some epic starts this season.
 
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