Nico Hulkenberg has called on F1 to find solutions to boost track time for drivers amid a reduction of testing and practice sessions.<\/p>\n
In-season testing has been abolished in recent years, with the only official test sessions being the pre-season and post-season outings.<\/p>\n
Sprint weekends provide drivers just 60 minutes of practice before they jump into the competitive sessions for the weekend.<\/p>\n
Full-time drivers are also required to hand over their cars to rookie drivers at two events per season.<\/p>\n
While Hulkenberg is content with the sprint format playing a role in F1’s future, he voiced concern over how little time drivers have to test the cars.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn principle, I’m a fan of sprint races,\u201d Hulkenberg exclusively told RacingNews365. \u201cI like the change-up, I don’t mind them.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome tracks are a bit more suited than others. It’s obviously a topic for F1 and not an easy challenge to find the right balance between entertainment and the high-performance sport, to give teams and drivers the opportunity to find the ultimate performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhilst I feel I’m always open for changes and new stuff, we also still somewhat need decent practice time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you see where the sport came from, how much testing there used to be – now there’s virtually none.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlus, there’s reduced practice time already. Sprint weekends, you have even less practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just feel maybe there needs to be looked at or balanced somewhere that we get some track time somewhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\tNico Hulkenberg highlights greatest challenge with F1 sprint format<\/p>\n
Currently, F1 sprint races are held at six weekends per year, but the sport’s CEO Stefano Domenicali has admitted their popularity could see the figure increased to as many as 12 going forward.<\/p>\n
Hulkenberg suggested the format can resemble a lottery, as a strong FP1 is crucial for a successful weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt also depends on the driver, sometimes you go out in FP1 and you click with the car immediately and everything’s good, you’re happy, the sprint is perfect,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut sometimes you go in and it doesn’t sit well, you need some more time to work your way in.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you don’t have a sprint, you don’t have that time. So then it\u2019s difficult, you’re on the back foot.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the on-track action begins on Friday, drivers are required to be present at the track on Thursday to carry out various media duties.<\/p>\n
Hulkenberg, however, would have no issue with Thursday being stripped from the weekend schedule.<\/p>\n
\u201cA perfect weekend actually would be without Thursday [media day] and straight into Friday!\u201d Hulkenberg laughed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nico Hulkenberg has called on F1 to find solutions to boost track time for drivers amid a reduction…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,827,830,828,831,829,826,813,823,825,806,805,824,803,804,822,85],"class_list":["post-188019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-daniel-ricciardo","tag-f1-calendar","tag-f1-live","tag-f1-results","tag-f1-standings","tag-ferrari","tag-formula-1","tag-lewis-hamilton","tag-max-verstappen","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}