Imola two-day weekend "a very good experiment" - Guenther Steiner

Haas

Imola two-day weekend "a very good experiment" - Steiner

Format provides an option should the calendar expand further

Sam Hall

Monday 9 November 2020 18:00

Haas team principal Guenther Steiner has labelled the two-day format run at Imola as "a very good experiment" and suggested it could be useful should the calendar continue to grow.

Last week Formula 1 announced a new race will be held in Saudi Arabia in 2021. This event takes the predicted calendar to 23-races with outgoing CEO and chairman Chase Carey stating recently "We expect to announce a 2021 calendar soon which will look much like our original 2020 calendar with a March start, early December finish and a record number of races including Saudi Arabia."

Numerous teams have indicated it may need to start rotating engineers and pit crews in order to give time off for rest and recovery.

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However, Steiner believes the sport could revisit the idea of two-day weekends as trialled at Imola and, due to weather conditions halting play on the Friday, the Nürburgring.

"I think it was a very good experiment," said the Haas boss.

"Sporting-wise it works, we just need to see now how it works commercially – well F1 needs to see if it can be made to work commercially, if promoters are happy to have two-day events instead of three."

At Imola, the three practice sessions, two 90-minute sessions on Friday and one hour-long session on Saturday morning, were replaced by a single 90-minute session on Saturday.

"Sporting-wise there was no downside to it, as always, we were ready for it. I would say there was a little bit more work for the engineers – a bit more pressure.

"For the rest of the team, specifically the mechanics, they just had a lot of pressure in a shorter time.

"They can live with it happily as it took out one day of their weekend away from home, especially if we go to a 23-race event calendar in the future.”

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