Sprint Race Weekends May be Seeing Some Changes this Year if the FIA, Formula 1 and the Teams can Pull their Fingers out in Time.
We may now have 2 separate qualifying sessions on a sprint race weekend if new rules are implemented on time.
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I know, I know, I’m not supposed to call it a Sprint Race. But under these proposed new format changes perhaps even that in itself will change.
The team behind the scenes at Formula 1 must have been listening to me on our EverythingF1 Podcast. I have been saying this on every single, sprint weekend race review podcast (gosh, that’s a mouthful) since they were introduced in 2021.
How it Would Work
The idea is to have a Qualifying session on Friday which dictates the grid for the Sprint (race) on the Saturday. Then have another qualifying session on the Saturday second session, which sets the grid for the main race on the Sunday. Alternatively, the Friday Qualifying session could be for the Sunday race. Then Saturday would be a one day event. What a brilliant idea, I should have thought of it myself. (Oh I did @52 mins 😉)
The stumbling blocks at the moment are that it would require a whole lot of jiggery pokery with the rule book/sporting regulations. Not to mention the fact that Pirelli have already shipped out the tyres for the Baku race weekend.
One way around it could be a return to 1 lap qualifying for one of the qualifying sessions that weekend. A return to 2003 era, which sees drivers performing only an outlap, a flying lap and then returning to the pit. This could be done in reverse championship order too! That would give the lower drivers in the championship, a better shot at their time. The evolution of the track surface, could really put the cat amongst the pigeons. Or the Williams amongst the Ferraris as the case may be.
The plan was announced by the current CEO of Formula 1 and apparent EF1 podcast listener 😅 Stefano Domenicali. He did this at the last F1 commission meeting where it received widespread interest and support from team bosses.
Thoughts on Sprint Race Weekends?
What do you think of this idea? What are your thoughts on the Sprint format in general? Do you think it needs changing/scrapped? Let us know on socials.
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