Kimi Raikkonen backs two-day format for Formula 1 grand prix events

Heavy rain across the United States Grand Prix weekend caused second practice to be cancelled and qualifying postponed to Sunday morning before the race.

The Ferrari driver said Sunday's compressed schedule meant the fans saw plenty of track action and proved a two-day weekend was feasible.

"Obviously we start a bit more early, but to be honest, for me it would be much nicer to run two-day weekends," he said.

"We could do all the free practices in one day.

"If you plan it you can fit all of those in two days or put longer one practice and only have two practices.

"I would think it would be cheaper for all the teams to run less days, be away less days.

"In a way it's quite nice - there is a lot happening on the race day so it's good for everybody.

"For everybody who is watching they could see cars running.

"We could easily manage to put it really nicely in two days. Like we demonstrated in Austin, it's not too busy.

"It's just that we are used to one thing and then everything is decided - the meetings are here, this and that.

"If you have everything planned in the first place like that, then everything gets kind of moved around, but it's all smooth.

"There was enough time for everything and I think it was quite a nice thing."

Ferrari team principal Maurizio Arrivabene agreed with Raikkonen but hinted the problem with the current format was more to do with contents of the schedule rather than the duration.

"Maybe a short format, a bit more compacted, it would be a good solution for Formula 1," he said.

"It depends on what you are doing during these days.

"Sunday in Austin was very exciting because having qualifying and a race on the same day, it was very exciting for the public.

"Then we got to put some magic with the rain and the race became even more interesting.

"It's not only a question of two or three days, it's a question of the contents that you are putting into the two or three days."