Formula 1 owner Liberty is reportedly considering shaking up the sport's traditional weekend format.

In Austin, the pre-race proceedings were suddenly changed when the pitlane was opened earlier to allow legendary announcer Michael Buffer to introduce the drivers in Indy 500 style, while Usain Bolt spiced up the waving of the green flag.

"We want Formula 1 to cross the boundary between sport and show," said Liberty's F1 commercial boss Sean Bratches.

Now, the next innovations are being planned.

Sporting boss Ross Brawn has been quoted by F1 business journalist Christian Sylt as saying that Friday practice sessions could be axed in future, making room for more races on the calendar.

"One of the things we are doing is looking at the format of a race weekend to see if we need to change that to make it logistically easier for [the teams] to do more races," Brawn is quoted as saying by Forbes.

Germany's Bild reports that another idea being discussed is a shake-up of the traditional 'two by two' formation on the race grid.

The report says that the grid rows in the future could alternate between two and three cars, increasing competition and the risk of a crash.