James Vowles wants major rule change that Lewis Hamilton once claimed makes F1 ‘so much harder’

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Williams team principal James Vowles has become the latest person to suggest a rule change for F1, as Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali ponders the future of the series.

Domenicali is eager to consider what changes, if any, are worth F1 exploring to further build its audience in the coming years. But not all of the proposals on the table have gained much support from the paddock, and some of F1’s ideas may ultimately never see the light of day.

Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso questioned Domenicali floating the idea of shortening the Grand Prix distance as the current length may be “a bit too long for younger audiences”. Yet Formula 1 Management is not looking to shorten race distances from the current length.

The topic of increasing the number of F1 Sprint events on the calendar from the current six per season is even gaining momentum. But Haas driver Esteban Ocon would back returning to one-shot qualifying over more Sprint events, with 10 Sprints per year possible from 2027.

Williams boss James Vowles thinks F1 should drop Friday practice and move to two-day race weekends

Under Domenicali’s watch, the F1 calendar has even increased to 24 Grands Prix and six F1 Sprints per term in each of the past two seasons. Williams team principal Vowles does not think F1’s calendar is too long, but he would support reducing the amount of on-track time.

READ MORE: Everything you need to know about F1’s 2026 engine and aero regulations

While it might lead to issues with race promoters by drastically reducing the amount of time that cars spend on track, Vowles believes it would be worth F1 considering a move to a two-day weekend and ditching Friday practice sessions. He feels it can yield “more randomness”.

Vowles told Business of Sport: “I don’t think we have too many races, but I would not go above where we are at the moment because we’re asking people at home to be there for half a year. Half your weekends are [spent] watching Formula 1. I think that’s about the extreme end of where you can go to.

“I would change [and] this is very much my opinion, I’ll put that out there, I would change to two-day weekends. I would do Saturday and Sunday. And here’s the reason why, we can do more at that point in time.

“I know I just said 24 [rounds] is the maximum, but I actually wouldn’t be concerned about the fact because we’ve given back Friday, which is one day. If you added another two race weekends in, you’d still be net in the same amount of time that you were previously.

“And I think we can commercialise it in a different way. But, more than that, I think the product will be better because we do a lot of practice at the moment. Now, if you force us, you get one hour before qualifying, and that’s it. That’s quite a different proposition. So, I think you’ll get more variability and more randomness that comes out of it.”

Lewis Hamilton once said two-day F1 race weekends would be ‘so much harder’

Formula 1 once trialled a two-day race weekend at the 2020 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, but Domenicali ruled out making it a permanent aspect of the calendar. Domenicali accepts that race promoters prefer three-day F1 race weekends to maximise ticket sales for the revenue.

The 2020 Eifel Grand Prix also became a two-day race weekend owing to bad weather ruling out any running on the Friday. Lewis Hamilton saw the reduced pollution from the two-day format as a “positive”, but the reduced track time made refining a set-up “so much harder”.

Hamilton said in 2020, via Autosport: “There’s 22 days less of 20 cars bombing around the track and polluting the air, the planet, so that’s a positive. I think it just made it so much harder for us.

“Normally, you have two sessions on the Friday. You get time to make tons of different set-up changes and, if you’re on the back foot, you’ve got time to catch up.

“When you start on a Saturday, you’ve got no time. You’ve got that one session to really get on top of it, the set-up, between practice and qualifying. It made it so hard.”

Sprint weekends also pose problems with refining a set-up for the relevant Grand Prix, with teams only getting one practice session on the Friday before Sprint Qualifying. But unlike a two-day race weekend, teams can then use their data from the Sprint to adapt their set-up.