The American company Liberty Media, which controls the economy of Formula 1, consistently strives to expand the calendar of the World Championship, every year new stages appear in it, and in 2022 their number reached 23. And this is not the limit .
Obviously such a busy schedule means an ever-increasing load on teams and drivers, so Liberty Media decided to slightly change the format of the weekend, formally making it one day shorter. If the drivers participated in the official FIA press conferences earlier on Thursday and actively communicated with accredited journalists, then this type of activity has been officially postponed to Friday.
However, the riders are still unhappy as they still have to deal with such matters on Thursday, fulfilling obligations to the team sponsors and giving interviews. According to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, the GPDA, which unites the drivers of the championship, has sent a letter to the FIA expressing its dissatisfaction with the new format of the weekend. Therefore, consultations with the parties are planned in Imola, ie an attempt will be made to better understand the substance of the claims and perhaps outline ways of reaching some sort of compromise.
Admittedly, there is a nuance: now all activities taking place on Thursday are planned by the teams themselves, not the FIA.
Max Frestappen, who took part in the official press conference today, said: “It used to be better. I think the first question is how the press conferences and the work with the press in general are organised.
Now Thursdays are very long for us, although it is officially assumed that this day is not included in the weekend program. But actually there was even more work on Thursday, and even more on Friday, because we have to get to the track earlier. Arriving early is not a problem, but the day is getting longer. In general I want the weekend to be shorter when there are more races on the calendar.
In fact, it turns out that not only are there more races, but the weekends have also gotten longer. So of course something has to change here.”
The worst, according to Verstappen, is that the riders have to communicate with representatives from different television companies, but everyone asks the same questions and this quickly gets boring.
“Here we participate in this press conference, then we leave here and we will have to answer questions from all television companies separately,” the Dutch Red Bull Racing driver continued. But they all ask the same question. And you have to repeat the same thing six or seven times.
I want your answers to be interesting, so you try to phrase them differently in some way, but you end up saying the same thing.
In other sports, when press conferences are held, we see a lot of microphones lined up together. And there the participants answer all the TV companies at once, and these are not two questions each, but everyone gets answers to six, eight or ten questions, and then everyone can show this interview.
In my opinion, this is a much more effective and interesting approach, as it allows journalists to get more information.”
During today’s press conference, many riders were asked about their attitude to the new format of the weekend, and almost everyone showed solidarity with Verstappen.
Source: F1 News
I’m Todderic Kirkman, a journalist and author for athletistic. I specialize in covering all news related to sports, ranging from basketball to football and everything in between. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, I have become an invaluable asset to my team. My ambition is to bring the most up-to-date information on sports topics around the world.
