Formula 1 teams expect any changes to the series’ sprint format for next season will involve no more than “tweaks” and “fine tuning”.
Last month F1’s motorsport director Ross Brawn said the series could make the Saturday races stand-alone events which do not decide the grid, and award more points for them. Brawn discounted the possibility of introducing reverse grids, because of its unpopularity with fans, though he has said he is eager to try it.McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl believes F1 should steer clear of any drastic changes and lightly rework the current concept.
“I’m definitely not a friend of introducing additional gimmicks with the format we ended up for this year, something we were supportive of because it doesn’t cause an artificial change of the pecking order throughout the weekend,” he said.
F1 will hold its third and final sprint race of the current season this weekend, but intends to hold six more in 2022.
“I think it’s important now, once we completed this third sprint race this weekend, that we then go back and analyse together with the other teams, with the FIA, Formula 1 if there’s a fine-tuning that should happen for next year when we try it six times.
“But again as I said I’m not a big fan of using any big gimmicks or separate stand-alone races. I’m pretty happy with the standard format, standard race weekend in Formula 1. We are very happy with doing what we did this year for these three events. If we extend it to six events next year, let’s do some fine-tuning and I think that the achieves everything.”
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Aston Martin CEO Otmar Szafnauer also believes the format only needs “a little bit” of changing for 2022.
“We should look at the timing of the weekends. We stay really late on Friday, for example, and come in early on Saturday. So if we just look at the entire weekend to make it a little bit easier on the crews and if it doesn’t take away from the fans we should tweak it a bit.
“But in general, I think we’ll, for the most part, leave it as it is.”
If the sprint races do become stand-alone events, Brawn believes the number of points on offer will have to be increased, in order to encourage teams to participate. Haas team principal Guenther Steiner said the idea “was mentioned, but nothing was decided.”
“There’s a lot of ideas going around a little bit how we can make it even better than this, in my opinion. So we didn’t discuss it in a forums, in the team principals and FIA and FOM, so I don’t want to really make a statement on that one.
“We need to calculate all what could be the scenarios if you change anything. All the time, if you make a change, we need to make sure that we put the best effort in that nobody gets an advantage or disadvantage or that it could decide the world championship. For me, that is very important as well.”
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2021 Sao Paulo Grand Prix
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F1 frog (@f1frog)
12th November 2021, 18:08
;)
Pedro (@)
12th November 2021, 18:19
Ah, para Ross Brawn, para! Come on, Ross Brawn, stop this nonsense!
Keith Campbell (@keithedin)
12th November 2021, 18:19
I think it needs more than minor changes or tweaks because the sprint format as it is is very lacklustre. Having two sessions just to set the grid and add a few points for the top teams doesn’t excite me much, and the sprint race itself is always likely to be processional because there aren’t many strategy options to play with in a one stint race.
I hope for an exceedingly dull sprint race tomorrow which might make them reconsider their stance… If they must continue some kind of sprint race format then I would rather they keep experimenting until they actually find something exciting, rather than this compromise solution which doesn’t seem to add anything to ‘the show’ – rather dilutes it and spreads it across more sessions.
bosyber (@bosyber)
12th November 2021, 19:02
Yep, the way this gimmick is currently, it just isn’t very good for the whole show (have another term now for tomorrow’s sprint, right @bascb ), so it needs a lot of work as far as I am concerned @keithdin, not as if it risks losing much as it is currently, and there’s noone who will miss the current ‘tradition’ of three test sprints; as long as it has a start, and some (more I hope) racing, what’s to worry more than currently?
bosyber (@bosyber)
12th November 2021, 19:03
sorry, @keithedin, typo
Gusmaia
12th November 2021, 20:16
There is no salvation to sprints while teams have to manage engine/power unit lifetime. Unless 2022 car really improve racing, it will depend on Todd allowing to call them races and (at least half of the usual) points to be awarded and somehow to count for constructors championship.
If even during the WCC-position awarding race on Sunday, teams had to make choices on when to push the power unit into harsh regimes/mappings, it is pretty evident that they wouldnt risk the sunday performance to gain maybe two position on sprint quali.
I think the only action we’ve seen came from drivers out of place. Oddly, maybe sprint quali only could work with reverse grid. It would be evem more atrocious, but maybe it could provide for the action FIA/sponsors expect.
Simon
12th November 2021, 23:13
“F1 team bosses expect no major changes to sprint format in 2022”
F1 and Liberty true to form as usual…
Jonathan
13th November 2021, 13:12
Ive got an idea:
Friday have FP1 then later in the day have the Sprint starting in Drivers Championship order. So as of this race it would be Max 1st, Lewis 2nd, Valtteri 3rd etc.
No Parc Ferme so the cars can be tweaked more and will not make FP2 a waste of time.
Saturday have FP2 then Qualifying as usual then Parc Ferme applies.
Sunday the Race.
It maintains the meritocracy element and gives people something to watch on Friday and keeps the commercial elements satisfied. Also if you hate Sprint you can give it a good stiff ignoring and just read up on what points were scored.