Kimi Raikkonen explains why he preferred the old one-lap qualifying system. Kimi's view on the qualifying format.

A proposal to trial qualifying races at some rounds of the 2020 F1 season continues to find little favour with drivers, who have been speaking out against some of the experimental proposals to the sport planned for next season. Liberty Media has been talking up prospects of trialling reverse grids at future races, but the drivers have come out fiercely opposed to such ‘gimmicks’ even on a limited basis.

Sebastian Vettel added that reverse grids were “complete bullshit to be honest.” And with the drivers convening in Sochi ahead of this weekend’s Russian Grand Prix, it appears that other drivers share their point of view on the subject.

Alfa Romeo Racing Finnish driver Kimi Raikkonen, the most experienced driver in Formula One at the moment, admitted that he preferred the qualifying format which was used when he first came into the sport 18 years ago.

“It depends obviously how they would do it but probably the qualifying can be more exciting than a short race,” he said – “If I would change I would go back to where it was from when started, one hour time and I think there was three sets of tyres and 12 laps, do when you want those. Over the years there’s been many different ways of doing it and I don’t honestly know if it really changed the end result an awful lot.”