When Sky Sports flooded the English Premier League with television money the first thing to go was the traditional kick off.
Saturday 3pm kick offs are the traditional start times for football in England, but to enable regular weekly televised games, kick offs were moved to accommodate broadcasters.
As kick off times altered, television broadcasters soon realised that later kick offs were better for their viewing figures and as such, the FA Cup final, a match that never needed moving before, was knocked backwards in a bid to get a higher numbers.
Now it’s Formula One’s turn.
F1’s new owners Liberty Media now feel they have their feet firmly under the table and after a year of watching and analysing they are now making changes.
First was the new logo and now it’s start times.
European races will see their once 2pm [CET] time slot, move back 70 minutes to 3.10pm, why the extra ten minutes I hear you ask? Well that’s to accommodate more time for television adverts of course!
motorsport.com believe the new race weekend timetable could resemble the following:
FP1 – 11-12.30pm
FP2 – 3pm-4:30pm
FP3 – 12pm
Qualifying – 3pm
Race – 3:10pm
Any races such as Singapore and Bahrain running to a full night race schedule and Abu Dhabi at dusk, would be unaffected.
The French Grand Prix is expected to have a start time of 4.10pm, why I hear you groan?
Well to come full circle, that’s to avoid a direct clash with the England versus Panama Football World Cup game that begins at 2pm French time!
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