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If TV is going to dictate how sports are run, not just presented, then every race should be run in seven-minute sprints to fit between commercials.
Soccer somehow is allowed to run 45-minute uninterrupted halves, though.
Six hours is an endurance race, not because of the pace (who says endurance racing should be slow???) but because it is difficult to keep any machine operating at maximum for a long time: human beings, human organizations, mechanized machines ...
Should marathons be doubled in length because runners can now cover the distance so much more quickly than 100 years ago? The original runner delivering the news of the Greek victory at Marathon died---should marathons be "Run 'til you drop"?
Should the whole idea of endurance races be scrapped because cars can now run fast for 24 hours, when originally it was rare that any car could run at any speed for that duration?
Longer races are more demanding, even if teams (and cars) can usually finish them. The simple need of maintaining focus for the entire race length gives the race its particular flavor.
The added duration also allows more time for error---errors in traffic, errors in the pits, strategy errors. This creates more drama for the viewer and more challenge for the teams.
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