F1’s start time shake-up

FORMULA ONE’S new owners continued to tinker yesterday by moving race start times back to 10 minutes past the hour.

A day after scraping grid girls, Liberty Media ditched on-the-hour starts, as well as delaying the Brazilian and all European grands prix by an hour and 10 minutes.

The British GP is now scheduled for 2.10pm on July 8.

‘Usually, broadcasters go on air precisely at the hour, so they miss the tension before the start,’ said Liberty in a statement, referring to the custom around large parts of the world but not in the UK.

Liberty said they are moving the European races back by 70 minutes because a wider television audience watches later in the afternoon.