When Profit Trumps Passion
Free practice propositions and gilded greed
Formula One Group CEO Stefano Domenicali rocked the motorsport world last week with comments about removing free practice sessions in the future.
“I am a supporter of the cancellation of free practice sessions, which are of great use to the engineers but that the public doesn’t like,” Domenicali said in an interview with SportTV.
Fans took to social media in the following days to express their discontent, criticizing the company for prioritizing profit over the profession. Even drivers, like Max Verstappen, spoke out against the influx of race revisions that seem to come in waves each week.
“I don’t think [Domenicali] meant exactly that [removing free practice sessions] because obviously, you can’t go to qualifying without free practice. But I’m not a fan of weekends with sprints, I’m not a fan of the number of races we do nowadays,” Verstappen said in an interview with Motorsport Italy. “I'm also not a fan of changing the whole format [without practice sessions].”
The former Scuderia Ferrari team principal and Lamborghini CEO has since corrected his previous statement, saying his words were exaggerated and that there are no plans to halt free practices.
The current weekend format includes two practice rounds on Friday with a third practice session the following morning. Qualifying takes place, fractured into three sessions with varying durations, on Saturday afternoon to determine the driving order come race day.
Domenicali isn’t wrong to question the validity of free practices. Extra races mean more money: extensive catering budgets, spendy rental space, and the additional support — both in labor and resources — that makes racing at the highest level possible.
However, practice sessions provide precious time in the car for drivers as data is collected and flaws are detected.
Across the board, the volume of Fédération Internationale de I’Automobile (FIA) regulation changes and unproductive bans waves a red flag.
While safety regulations are rarely contentious and often celebrated, track bike-ride bans, team finish-line celebration embargoes, and imaginative pit stop rules leave fans and teams confused.
Highly controversial rule changes, like political speech suppression, point to a slippery slope of playing nice with ethically murky host countries and their mercenary-motivated sponsors.
Ultimately, the slew of regulation changes adds to the spectacle itself. The FIA seems to understand that all press is good press. The flurry of media coverage and online discourse seems to only incentive critics, fans, and skeptics alike to tune in when race day comes around.
However, as an outsider looking in, it feels like playing monopoly against an opponent who erases traditional rules and scribbles new ones each round — effectively upending your performance with a bat to the knees.
It’s no secret that F1 is a world of silver and spectacle. Sir Lewis Hamilton said it best himself in the debate over whether to cancel the 2020 Australian Grand Prix because of COVID-19.
“Cash is King,” the seven-time world champion said.
The FIA’s consideration of removing free practices is just a blip in a history of altering the weekend’s structure in favor of viewers and sponsors.
The 2005 launch of the aggregate qualifying round, consisting of two qualifying sessions with different fuel levels, was scrapped because of fan and press complaints over not knowing the pecking order at the start of race day. A second method — elimination qualifying — was quickly written off because of a lack of excitement, as track time lasted a mere few minutes.
Throughout F1’s history, qualifying configurations have been abandoned for not producing enough zeal. For example, two-day qualifying, which dominated from the 1950s through the ‘90s, ended its five-decade run after failing to thrill.
There doesn’t seem to be a happy medium with drivers, fans, media, sponsors, team principals, and stewards to satisfy, hence the hasty and, often, random rule changes. But too much focus on one stakeholder may lead the sport into dangerous waters.
Could the focus on the production value of the Formula One brand as it expands mean losing sight of the sport itself?
A friend of mine recently said getting rid of practices, or reducing them, is great for entertainment value and F1’s bottom line, but it diminishes the feeling that racing is a sport.
Verstappen seemed to echo this statement and put it plainly, as he notoriously does.
“They have to be careful not to change the entire DNA of Formula 1. I think it's important not to play too much with this aspect, because then, obviously, at a certain point, everything stops.”