Teams Given Choice of Sessions in New Prologue Schedule

FIA World Endurance Championship teams will be given a choice of which sessions they will run in during this week’s Qatar Prologue test.

According to an updated schedule released on Sunday, the Prologue will now comprise a total of four sessions, with two scheduled for Monday and the remaining sessions on Tuesday, but each team will only participate in three.

Teams have been given the choice of whether to take part in the opening session at Lusail International Circuit starting at 2 p.m. on Monday or the final session, due to commence at the same time on Tuesday. They must submit their decision to the organizers by midday on Monday.

Whichever option they choose, teams are set to get 11 hours of running over the course of the two-day test, with both the first and final sessions lasting three hours.

The remaining sessions, mandatory for all teams, run from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Monday and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Tuesday.

The decision to give teams a choice of sessions stems from the later-than-expected arrival of the remaining freight that had arrived by road from Jeddah due to shipping disruptions, which caused the initial delay of the Prologue that was originally slated to take place on Saturday and Sunday.

The final containers holding cars and equipment didn’t materialize at Lusail until Sunday morning, giving several teams a tough task to be ready the opening session of the Prologue that had been pencilled in for 12 p.m. on Monday.

However, the compromise of giving teams a choice of sessions was made to not force the teams that were already set up and ready to go to wait even more.

News of the further delay to the arrival of the missing containers meant the opening session of the Prologue that was planned for Monday morning had already been eliminated from the schedule as of Saturday evening.