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Former Ferrari engineer Rob Smedley has disagreed with F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali's suggestion of removing free practice sessions from the race weekend.
Domenicali, who was Ferrari's team principal when Smedley was the race engineer for Felipe Massa, recently stated that FP sessions do not add to the spectacle of the F1 weekend and audiences do not really enjoy watching them.
While appearing on the Sky Sports podcast, Smedley said:
"My opinion is we've got a decent balance now and I mean if you look at back in the day we were doing 35,000 km and I think it's hard now, especially with the teams and the amount of capital investment that the teams can spend each year within the cost cap that you can get rid of the Free Practice altogether.
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"So there has to be some element where the cars can run on the track where it's not for points or positions on the grid. I do agree with Stef that perhaps it can be slightly more entertaining for the public."
"This year we are not coming into this race in the same situation as we were last year" - Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc
Charles Leclerc has said that he was happy to be returning to Melbourne and has good memories from last year as he won the race but also mentioned that he was aware that the situation this year is a bit different.
Speaking to F1.com, he said:
“Yeah, good memories, but looking [at] this year we are not coming into this race in the same situation as we were last year. I think clearly our performance is not as good as last year but we are working massively to try and come back to the front.
“We are fully motivated to be back at the front, we know what we need to work on; I don’t think there will be any miracles this weekend, but after that, we’ve got three weeks’ break and we will try to use it in the best way possible in order to bring upgrades as quickly as possible on the car. I do believe we will be quite close in qualifying, I hope so, but I think the picture in the race will be quite similar [to previous Grands Prix],"
It would be fascinating to see how Ferrari and Charles Leclerc fare this season in Melbourne this weekend.
