Recently, Stefano Domenicali has suggested new ways to shake up Formula 1 and make it more appealing to younger fans. With the rise in popularity of Drive to Survive on Netflix and the upcoming Brad Pitt F1 film, the sport has gained a wave of new followers. Domenicali wants to build on this momentum by proposing major changes such as removing Friday free practice sessions in favour of more sprint races, shortening the main races, and even experimenting with reverse grids. His aim is to make race weekends more action-packed and better suited to shorter attention spans.
Personally, I do not usually watch free practices on television as they are not designed with fans in mind. That said, when attending a race weekend in person, free practices are an invaluable part of the experience. They give fans the chance to move around the circuit, test out different viewing spots, and truly feel the speed of an F1 car. I always recommend standing on the Hangar Straight at Silverstone because there is nothing like seeing what an F1 car is capable of at full throttle.
For teams, free practices are also crucial. They use them to fine-tune car setups, collect race data, rehearse pit stops, and mentally prepare for the weekend. With such a relentless calendar and back-to-back races, those sessions are often the only breathing room teams have to settle in before the real action begins.
As for sprint races, I do not mind them, but I cannot say they add much to the weekend. Honestly, I have not watched a single sprint qualifying session this year, and I often forget to catch the races themselves. They do not excite me, but I am not against them either.
Reverse grids, though, are where I draw the line. They work in series like the British Touring Cars, where multiple races are run in a single weekend. But in F1, it would undermine qualifying completely. Drivers could deliberately aim for lower positions in the sprint, which offers fewer points, just to secure a stronger starting place in the main race. That would make qualifying sessions boring and artificial. Unless the entire race weekend was restructured, I cannot see reverse grids going down well with fans.
I worry that changes like these could alienate long-term fans. I do not think short attention spans are the real issue pushing people away from F1. The bigger problem is the way the sport is run. Inconsistent stewarding and overly harsh penalties drain the excitement out of wheel-to-wheel battles. Fans love seeing fair scraps and daring overtakes, those unpredictable fights that keep you on edge corner after corner. But drivers are increasingly penalised for racing hard, and that discourages them from taking risks. Meanwhile, penalties handed out long after sessions finish make it worse. If stewards cannot make decisions during the race, what are they there for? And with shorter races, delays in decisions would only become more frustrating.
Alongside race penalties, there are also engineering penalties, which can be equally frustrating. It becomes particularly annoying when extra races are added to the calendar, yet the cars are clearly not designed for the increased workload. Inevitably, at some point during the season, teams need to use more than the allocated parts. It seems counterproductive to increase the number of races without increasing the teams’ allowances, as it makes grid drops feel artificial and staged rather than a natural consequence of competition.
And let us not ignore the biggest elephant in the room: money. To watch races in most countries you have to pay for some form of subscription service. In the UK, that means Sky Sports or Now TV. Of course, you can use VPNs, but they can be a headache to set up and finding one with a reliable stream is not always straightforward. Attending races in person is also becoming more expensive, often with fewer benefits than before. Fans face long delays leaving circuits, while ticket prices keep climbing. At Silverstone, Thursday access was once included in the price of a weekend ticket, but now it costs extra, despite there being no track action. At the recent Dutch Grand Prix, reports suggested grandstands still had availability on the Saturday before the race, and many fans pointed to rising ticket prices compared with previous years.
As a long-term fan, one of the things that really bothers me is seeing influencers who have never shown any genuine interest in the sport getting VIP access to races. These are behind-the-scenes passes that lifelong fans could only dream of, yet they are often wasted on people who are only there to pose with the cars. Many of them are not even watching the race, instead using the access for vlogs and social media content that has little to do with the sport itself. I know I am not the only fan who feels this way, and it is frustrating to watch when there are so many dedicated supporters who would give anything for that experience. But I digress.
At the end of the day, not every F1 race will be thrilling, and that is fine. As Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso said, football matches are not all exciting either, but that is the nature of sport. If someone struggles to sit through a full F1 race, perhaps the issue is not the length of the race but whether F1 is really the sport for them. As a long-term fan with a deep passion for traditional, wheel-to-wheel racing, I am concerned that these changes may not help the sport as intended and could instead alienate many loyal fans.
Do you agree? Let me know your thoughts on the new proposed changes in the comments.
Sincerely,
Catherine
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