F1, Qatar GP schedule changes: unprecedented decision

The decision made at Losail is unprecedented.

Formula 1 changing format just hours before a potentially decisive session for the 2023 world championship. Saturday’s Losail race could in fact award the title to Max Verstappen, should he finish at least sixth in the Sprint Race. Qualifying for Saturday’s race has però been postponed by 20 minutes due to the last-minute addition of an additional free practice session not initially scheduled.

Indeed, the FIA has announced that the time when the Sprint Shootout was originally scheduled (3 p.m. Italian time) will instead be allocated to 10 minutes of free practice available to the drivers. The reason è is to get familiar with the track limits at Losail, which so many problems had caused on Friday (those in Turn 12 and Turn 13 have since been modified). For this reason, qualifying for the Sprint Race will be held starting at 3:20 p.m.

Such a situation is unprecedented. The'only possible hook-up in Formula 1 history è that of the 1984 Dallas Grand Prix, which saw free practice slip by more than two hours because of the need to weld some manholes and improve the runways. On race Sunday, therefore, parts of the track were resurfaced in extremis: this led to the cancellation of the warm-up and 10 laps of the Grand Prix.

Already on Friday, Frederic Vasseur had complained about the situation in Losail to the microphones of 'Sky Sport'. "We already knew that in Qatar it could have gone this way,” the Ferrari team principal had said. “But for F1 it is not a good figure to see two times cancelled for track limits, it is not; for television and it is also bad to see it from the wall. Even for us it becomes complex to handle situations like that. And here it was soè even two years ago".

"Looking ahead to the race, I am worried. There could be strong gusts of wind, which would make it very complicated to manage the 5 cm that drivers need to stay within the limits of the track. So it will become crucial to have the information in real time, so we can turn it over to our drivers. But I can imagine how hard it is also for the race director, who has to control 20 cars. Before homologating a track one should also think about these things", Vasseur had added.