With the aim of creating a shorter weekend format due to the increase in races on the calendar, in this 2022 Formula 1 moved the day of attention to the media from Thursday to Friday, thus eliminating a full day.
But once put into practice, this system has not worked, leading to complaints from the pilots, who claim to be just as busy on Thursdays with other commitments, while on Fridays they take longer with the attention to the media and the delay in the start of training sessions.
It hasn’t been a beneficial change for the press either, considering that all these statements are made shortly before practice, many of them become obsolete once the cars hit the track, that is, several hours later.
Max Verstappen himself, reigning world champion and 2022 championship leader, expressed his frustration with the new system a couple of months ago during the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
“I think it’s more about how we are doing the press conferences and the activities with the media. I think it was better before,” the Dutchman said at the time.
As reported by Motorsport.com last April, the drivers’ annoyance was something that was transferred to the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association (GPDA), which led them to send letters to F1 and the FIA to make them know your discontent.
This request of the pilots was taken into account and now the matter has been taken, since the FIA has decided that the day of attention to the media will be Thursday again and not Friday from the British Grand Prix 2022, the next appointment on the Formula 1 calendar.
The official press conferences will start 23 hours before the start of the first practice session, which means that, in the specific case of Silverstone, it will be at 2:00 p.m. on Thursday.
The format will be made up of two different press conferences, with five drivers in each and a maximum of 30 minutes each per session, while the remaining ten will speak for television and the written press in individual sessions.
It should be noted that this change still needs to be approved by the FIA World Motor Sport Council , although it is understood that it is a mere formality.
