Verstappen and several colleagues judged the format tested in Hungary very negatively, as it limits activity on the track.
The weekend of Hungarian GP it officially started with the first two free practice sessions. After a wet FP1, FP2 saw more activity on track to recover the time and data lost at the start of the day. Also in the second session, however, the riders were very limited in their activity by an external factor: the new format of Qualification that will be tested just tomorrow at theHungaroring. named “ATA” (“Alternative Tire Allocation”), this new program obliges the teams to fit the hard tires in Q1, then switch to the medium ones in Q2 and finally to the soft ones only in Q3. There F1 has studied this format for reasons of sustainability, given that the number of sets of tires brought to the track goes from 13 to 11, but there is a reverse side of the medal: the activity on the track, as underlined by Max Verstappen and several other pilots, is severely limited.
Foto: Getty Images / Red Bull Content Pool
The Dutchman was, as usual, the most eloquent on the matter, pointing out that: “The experimental format limits us a lot in terms of use of the tyres, and I didn’t want to use them today to have them available tomorrow. It’s a shame because there are so many people on the track but in the end you don’t ride much. We have to see what can be done to improve this situation, because the only thing we’re doing is saving sets of tyres”. Also Lewis Hamilton gave a negative rating: “In this session we could only use one set of tyres. This new format is not good because it leaves us with less activity on the track. It’s not ideal, especially when you consider that many sets of wet tires are thrown away at the end of each weekend. Maybe they should think about this and avoid reducing our presence on the track, thinking of the fans.”
Like Verstappen, the drivers of the McLaren they have not expended praise for the new format. Lando Norris stated that: “The rain was lucky, because otherwise we wouldn’t have done anything in FP1. It’s very complicated, we all have to understand how to behave”. He expressed a similar thought too Oscar Piastri: “You try to use the least possible set of tires and at the same time you have to learn as many things as possible. If today had been a completely dry day, we would have seen very little track activity. Thanks to the rain it turned more than usual. It’s never fun when you have one or two sets of tires available for the whole Friday.” Carlos Sainz echoed him, stating that: “It’s been a strange day with the new format. We didn’t do as many laps as we would like in FP1 and in FP2 we had to keep some sets. I’m not a fan of this type of schedule because we shoot less than on normal Fridays.”
Cover photo: Alessandro Martellotta for Newsf1.it
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