F1 teams required to run ‘rookies’ on Friday morning to clean track

Formula 1 managing director Ross Brawn has confirmed plans to make rookie running compulsory for a number of Friday morning FP1 practice sessions from 2022.

“Friday running is coming in,” said Brawn.

“On Friday, each team will have to run FP1 with a rookie. And we’re being very careful about how we define a rookie. Let’s wait and see how we define it.

“I think it’s next year they’ll need to run a young driver on a Friday, every team a certain number of occasions.”

“Look who we’ve seen come in, we’ve seen George [Russell] come in, Charles [Leclerc] come in, Max [Verstappen] come in, we’ve seen other drivers come in.

“So there is the opportunity there. It’s great to try and help, but I don’t think we’re lacking in young drivers coming through into F1.”

“We were very supportive in putting mandatory sessions in place at the post-season tests, or even during the season in practice sessions allow rookies to do official sessions,” said McLaren boss Andreas Seidl.

“It’s very hard for rookies nowadays with all the limited testing to get seat time.

“So we’re very happy with that, and we are also in favor to promote this even further more. it is the discussion we are having with the others teams, FIA and F1 going forward.

“I suppose we are looking into who we actually want to give the chance to be in our car for these sessions. That’s a process that is ongoing at the moment.

“Absolutely happy with that. It also makes sense that we introduce that gradually. Next year we speak about two or three practice sessions so it’s a good first step.

“But then I think moving forward we would be also happy to ramp this number of sessions up.

“It’s good to have this also mandatory, so it’s in the end, from a sporting perspective, the same for each team, and fair in the end. That’s why we were very supportive with putting that in place.”