Last weekend’s Brazilian Grand Prix at Interlagos was far from being the first F1 event to have its schedule changed significantly after it had already begun.
After the planned grand prix qualifying session on Saturday afternoon was delayed and delayed and delayed due to heavy wet conditions until eventually being postponed by race control, the session was moved to Sunday morning instead.
It was the latest of a large handful of race weekends over the years that had seen qualifying moved to Sunday, including the 2009 Japanese Grand Prix, the 2015 United States Grand Prix and the 2019 Japanese Grand Prix. But what made last week’s race unique was that, for the first time in modern history, the start time of the grand prix itself was brought forward to start 90 minutes earlier than originally planned. This happened with less than 24 hours before the race had originally been due to begin.
Formula 1 has historically been extremely reluctant to be flexible with race start times. The 2014 Japanese Grand Prix began when originally planned at 3pm local time, despite some drivers including Felipe Massa expressing their view the start time should have been moved earlier to help avoid likely poor weather. The infamous 2021 Belgian Grand Prix was abandoned after only Safety Car laps as conditions failed to improve during the delay until race control effectively ran out of time to wait any longer.
Although it may make sense to move start times earlier to help improve the prospects of getting a full grand prix in the books, logistically it’s a lot easier said than done. Not only are you asking thousands of ticket holders to arrive to the circuit sooner than they otherwise would have, but many naturally have travel plans based around the original start time that might be impossible to adjust at the last minute.
There’s also the broadcasters, who have set their TV schedules around the original planned start time months in advance. Changing a race start time so soon before it was supposed to take place is not an insignificant disruption as they have to adjust their schedules to fit the race in.
That can also makes life difficult for the television audience, too. Even if Sky or F1 TV can easily adjust without problems, fans may not have the ability to just move their weekend plans to accomodate an earlier start time. Especially if they have children or live in a time zone where the start time falls at an unfriendly hour.
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