Formula 1 must continue to experiment with changes to its race weekend format in order to attract new fans, CEO Stefano Domenicali believes.
The series made a major change to its format by introducing sprint races to three rounds in 2021. It has extended the format to six rounds this year.
However Domenicali is keen to see further changes in order to attract more viewers to the sport. This week he reiterated his desire to see more practice sessions replaced with competitive events to increase their appeal to viewers.
“People are coming to see performance and the more you give the chance to teams and drivers to see who they are, the better it is for the show,” he told Sky. “And I would say on the other hand I think that we don’t have to forget about the rookies, so we need to give the time for them to practice. As always in life there has to be a balance.
“We are thinking to have a session where there is something to perform for the better of the sport, and that’s it. Altogether with the drivers we are just thinking and working out what is the best plan to try, to see the reaction, and go for it. No fear of that.”
Domenicali said F1 is in a “really very, very strong” position at the moment, but says the sport must continue adapting to keep drawing new fans in.
“I think that to keep the attention [we should] have no fears to be aggressive on thinking of new formats,” he said. “It’s not because we don’t respect the traditional or respect the old way of thinking of a weekend. It would be wrong not to think about it.
“As I say, we don’t have to be shy. We can really have the time to consider there are, like me, old fans that have certain ideas of what is the formula of a weekend. But we have also a new generation that are coming in, they are more aggressive in asking [for] something different. So as always a matter of balance and we want to work out the best way for interest of the sport.”
Although Red Bull has made a dominant start to the season, Domenicali remains hopeful the competition will tighten up over the rest of the year.
“It’s been an incredible start to the season,” he said. “It’s clear that Red Bull on track has been very fast.
“But I’m very prudent, normally, to say that everything is just finished because it’s not. We have still a lot of races to go. Things can change quickly. You have seen also in terms of reliability how the things could be different from one moment to the other.”
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