Vowles proposes shortening the race weekend to two days.

      James Vowles has suggested rethinking the race weekend format, cutting it down to two days. The Williams team principal believes such a decision would make on-track racing more unpredictable and would allow a few more rounds to be added to the calendar.

      “I don’t think we’re running too many races, but I wouldn’t go beyond the current calendar, because we’re already asking fans to spend half their weekends at home to watch Formula 1,” James Vowles said on the Business of Sport podcast. “I think we’ve already reached the limit with that.

      “I would change the length of the race weekend, cutting it down to two days — Saturday and Sunday. Then we could hold more races. Yes, I just said that 24 rounds is the maximum, but we’re dropping Friday. And if we add two extra rounds, the season’s length in terms of days would remain unchanged.

      “I think that in that scenario we could monetise Formula 1 differently. The product we sell would be better. Right now we run a lot of practice sessions, but if we left just a single hour-long session before qualifying, it would be a completely different matter. We’d get more variability and randomness in the results.”