With a busy 2022 season ahead, Formula One has announced changes to the weekend schedule at each of the races.
This year, there are a record-breaking 23 races planned for the season, and with the race weekends normally running from Thursdays to Sundays, the sport has decided to condense the weekend’s activities into three days.
While this may not seem like much, the planned changes will save the teams a total of 24 days over the year – two days at Monaco and 22 days at each of the other races.
Currently, a typical race weekend sees the drivers’ media duties carried out at the track on Thursday, while teams set up the garages ready for the weekend.
Friday involves two 90-minute practice sessions, and on the Saturday there is one final 60-minute practice session before qualifying takes place.
The main event – the race – is then held on Sunday.
The new changes will see events on the Thursday completely scrapped.
The media sessions will now move to Friday morning, and the two practice sessions will be moved back and take place later in the day.
Monaco, which traditionally has no cars running on Friday, will also fall in line with this new schedule.
The event in Monte Carlo usually takes place from Wednesday to Sunday with Friday off.
With more races planned for the year than any other season, there is an added need to fit in races on consecutive weekends.
There are plenty of double-headers and also a triple-header arranged with three races planned over consecutive weekends in Russia, Singapore and Japan.
Usually, the races that are planned over consecutive weeks take place in countries that are geographically close together.
Despite this, the turnaround at the end of a weekend’s race to get back on the road as soon as possible can put a strain on every team.
Although there haven’t been any major problems with traveling, there have been some close calls.
For example, a delay caused by the weather when the teams traveled between Mexico and Brazil last season led to a delay to the freight for some of the teams.
So, the additional day off on Thursday ensures an extra day’s rest for the teams between each race.
It remains to be seen whether this compacted schedule could impact the time that each team has to work on the car and that things could be rushed.
The announcement has made no mention of the plans for the races with the new sprint qualifying format, which was used for the first time last season.
There were three of these last year and there was talk of more being added for this year, though there have been no details confirmed.
The new season kicks off in Bahrain on March 20, with the Championship’s finale taking place in Abu Dhabi on November 20.
