Chase Carey says talks will continue about possible experimentations with Formula 1 race and race weekend formats in 2020 despite the chances of reverse grid qualifying races on Saturdays failing to materialise.
The boss of Formula 1 was keen to see Sunday’s grid being determined by a half hour Qualifying race on Saturday afternoons, particularly at the double header weekends at the Red Bull Ring and Silverstone, but these plans were not unanimously supported by the ten Formula 1 teams when it was discussed in a recent meeting.
In a video interview conducted by Formula 1, Carey says there have been talks about ways to change the sport but there is an insistence that the history of it is not tainted by the use of gimmicks.
“We’ve had discussions in the past couple of years about should we look at ways to make some changes that honour the sport, respect what has made the sport great but we think would be changes that would enhance the experience for fans,” said Carey.
“We’ve talked about a couple in the coronavirus context of these two [double-header] races. At this point we’ve had one that’s been publicised about a reverse grid that not all teams were comfortable with, and making changes in this short timeframe requires unanimity of support.
“We’re changing almost real time inside the season, but we’ll continue to look at ideas. We want to make sure they’re not gimmicks.
“It’s a great sport with great history, great heroes, great stars, incredibly talented drivers and other individuals so we want to respect everything to a degree but we want to make sure that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t look at ways to make some changes.”
