Alonso: F1 should remove parade lap to accommodate pre-race show

Fernando Alonso has suggested that Formula 1 should scrap the drivers’ parade on the build-up to a grand prix if it wishes to conduct a pre-race show.

Last time out at the Miami Grand Prix, F1 included a new ceremony on Sunday to build anticipation for the race.

Rapper LL Cool J introduced the drivers individually on the start-finish straight while fellow artist will.i.am conducted an orchestra playing his new song called ‘The Formula’.

The show was met with criticism by fans and drivers alike, with George Russell asserting that the presentation was a distraction.

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McLaren’s Lando Norris highlighted that F1 “can’t just keep putting things in and making us do more and more” during race weekends.

The drivers also traditionally take part in a pre-race parade of the track to allow spectators to see all 20 competitors.

Alonso, who is F1’s most seasoned driver with 360 race starts to his name, suggests that F1 should scrap the parade lap if it wants to implement a pre-race show similar to Miami’s spectacle.

“I understand the point of view of everybody but I’m not a big fan of those kinds of things just before the race,” he said. 

“If we have to do it, I think we need to remove some of the other stuff we are doing like the parade lap or something like that. 

“It [the parade lap] is really in the middle of the preparation with the engineers and the strategy meeting.”

F1 conducted a similar show at the 2017 US Grand Prix with Michael Buffer announcing the driver walkouts.

But Alonso says that if F1 wants to hold the pre-race shows, it must do so for all tracks it visits and not just rounds in the USA.

“If we do it, we have to do it everywhere because I don’t think that the Miami fans are better than the Italian fans in Imola or in Spain or in Mexico or in Japan,” he said. 

“I think we need to make everyone with the same rules and the same show before the race.”