An additional practice session on Friday?
Jean Todt, the president of the FIA, has some changes to propose for the race weekend format in 2012.
If the current trend in recent years has been to eliminate private testing deemed too costly, Jean Todt would like to provide more opportunities for the young third drivers of the teams to drive.
The president of the FIA has therefore suggested the idea of adding a session on Friday, reserved for so-called “reserve” drivers and intended solely for them.
In fact, it would not really be an addition of on-track time for the cars, but rather a restructuring of said time. The current three hours of Friday testing would be divided into three one-hour sessions, one of which would be exclusively reserved for test drivers.
It’s true that this year, the situation is not necessarily clear for the teams and the spectators. Indeed, it is not uncommon for a main driver (especially within smaller teams like Team Lotus or Force India) to be forced to give up their place to a third driver during one of the Friday practice sessions.
As such, Nico Hülkenberg, Karun Chandock, or Daniel Ricciardo all took advantage of this situation to gain time on the track.
If this idea is implemented in 2012, some are already spreading rumors about the presence of Frenchman Jules Bianchi in a Ferrari on Friday.
However, the FIA has not yet made anything official.
