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Mosley says scrap Friday running

Max Mosley threw his hat into the debate over pepping up Friday Formula 1 practice sessions by suggesting they should be scrapped altogether

Concern is mounting that Friday is becoming an increasingly redundant day, with intensive testing during the season allowing teams to turn up with a baseline set-up already in the bag. With the number of tyres allowed during a weekend strictly limited, paying spectators now see relatively few F1 laps on a Friday. A meeting will be held in London on Wednesday between team chiefs, FIA president Mosley and F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone to thrash out ways of improving the show.

Suggestions already put forward include reducing the amount of testing between races, allowing extra tyres purely for Friday running and bringing back a timed qualifying session on the Friday. But speaking in the Guardian newspaper, the president of the sport's governing body said: "If it was up to me alone to decide, I would give up Fridays altogether from the viewpoint of running the cars. Two days, Saturday and Sunday, is quite adequate for a world-class sporting event. But I suspect it will be far too radical for the competing teams to accept."

As a compromise to make Fridays meaningful, Mosley believes testing at circuits holding an event should be banned during the season - allowing venues such as Mugello and Jerez to still be used. Mosley is against qualifying on Friday because he believes that Saturday's single session is now an event in itself.

"If I had my way," he added, "I would open up Friday as more of a media day, enabling the press to talk to the drivers, engineers and team managers in a more relaxed mood. They would be obliged to be there and make themselves available."

The teams themselves are believed to be split on their Friday views, while Ecclestone has suggested running a Friday and Saturday qualifying session, then deciding grid positions on aggregate times.

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