Steiner: Same day qualifying would lead to loss of fans

Despite qualifying and race being held on the same day being met with positivity during last weekend's Japanese Grand Prix, some are still concerned that this could not work every weekend, one of which is Guenther Steiner.

The Haas team principal believes, although the scenario worked thanks to the threat of Typhoon Hagibis forcing Saturday's track action to be cancelled, it would be dangerous to implement the idea into a normal weekend schedule as it would lead to a loss of fans.

"I think it worked in the circumstance we had," Steiner said. "I think it was a good fix to yesterday's problem I think in terms of safety it was the right decision.

"If this is a better idea to do it more consistently to do it all in one day I would say no because we would then lose the people that either watch racing or the people that watch qualifying.

"If you imagine the person sitting at home watching in the morning, in European time I'm obviously speaking, with qualifying and in the afternoon watching racing, then how many times are they going to do that because they are using up all of their Sunday for the two of them."

With concerns rising that the short time frame between qualifying and the race doesn't give teams enough time to repair any damage in-between sessions, Steiner says that he is not as concerned with this matter as he is with the possible loss of interest from the sport.

On Sunday morning Haas driver Kevin Magnussen and Williams' Robert Kubica crashed during Q1 of the qualifying session, leaving both teams with only a couple of hours to fully repair and ready the cars for the race.

"I see it as less of a problem because we have to deal with it and we don't race for just us," Steiner added.

"We are racing for the spectators and the fans which will want to watch us. They will just get an over loss of one day and at the end of the day we would either lose half of the people for qualifying or half of the people for the race.

"I think very few people would stay at home for one day completely to watch Formula 1 in the morning and then again in the afternoon."