Grosjean calls for MotoGP-style Friday action

Romain Grosjean has suggested that Formula 1 should follow MotoGP's lead and offer more fan-friendly track action to avoid a lack of excitement on practice days.

With Friday's opening sessions for the Russian Grand Prix having been blighted by a diesel spill and a wet track, there was only limited excitement for fans who had bought tickets.

Grosjean, who did not complete a lap on Friday, said F1 should consider something different like MotoGP did in Japan this weekend when it put together a race on mini bikes for its top stars.

"If you follow MotoGP on Instagram, you can see they did the race with the small bikes, and they do some stuff for the fans," explained Grosjean.

"Maybe we could potentially do something like that – although it is much harder to create a small F1 car than a small motor bike.

"[A day like today] is not great for the fans, but on the other hand if we go out today we crash and we don't have any spares – what do we do?

"What we want is to race and score points on Sunday and not take the risk that we don't want to take – so I don't know. I don't have the clear answer."

When asked if one solution would be a side show race like ProCar, as was discussed by team principals earlier this year, Grosjean said: "That would be messy – but it would be good. It would be fun.

"If you put us all in a go kart, we would be laughing like crazy because we are passionate about driving, and having fun.

"I was speaking about MotoGP because I love it, follow it on Instagram, where everyone had replica motorbike and went on track. It could be fun."

Max Verstappen was another driver who backed the idea of trying to get F1 drivers to do something different on a Friday.

"Yes, like what MotoGP did," he said. "I am always up for go karting….that is for sure!"