28 Cars on the track in Free Practice

[shiny side up!]

I was just looking at the live timing screen from the Formula1 website, and it struck me that including all of the 3rd cars today there are a total of 28 cars on the track... 28, a fair number more than the official limit for an actual grid size.

That got me to thinking... FIA claim that it is not practical to increase grid sizes due to infrastructure limits at some tracks... that there would not be enough garage space, pit row too tight, etc... but don't they currently disprove that at every GP with all of the 3rd cars?

I suppose it could be argued that 2 3rd cars take up less space than 1 additional 2 car team because the third cars share garages with their 2 raceday siblings. Still... the action in the pits is a lot heavier during Free Practice than it ever is during a race. Not necessarily due to actual pit stops with refueling and tire changes, but in sheer volume of traffic it is certainly much worse...