Last Updated on December 5 2023, 9:13 am

At a meeting of the F1 commission comprising all the partners involved in the sport, the toxic top of revising the Sprint weekend format for 2024 was raised. A lack of unity meant decisions over how the Sprint races will be run has been kicked into the new year, though at present again six are planned during the course of the season.

The Sprint format was tweaked at the dawn of the 2023 season which saw the second practice session replaced with a separate Sprint qualifying session. Previously the Sprint grid was set by qualifying and then the Grand Prix grid from the finishing positions in the Sprint race.

 

 

 

Sprint format under review again

Yet once again, the Sprint races in 2023 were on the whole forgettable, though the additional qualifying session added some spice to the weekend’s on track connotative action.

Ideas such as a separate Sprint championship have been suggested, although there appears little support for this amongst the drivers. With just 8 points for the win, the teams and drivers are rightly focused on the Grand Prix on Sunday and the idea of a Sprint championship incentivising the slower teams has failed to gain traction.

Sunday is just as important for the teams who do not score points week in and week out and even a P10 in the Grand Prix with its single point awarded can make tens of millions of dollars difference when the constructors’ championship shakes out.

One of the problems the teas face during Sprint weekends is they have less time to find the optimum setup and balance for their cars, which of course increases jeopardy and throws up some surprises over Saturday and Sunday.

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Parc ferme problematic

The cars are ‘locked in’ with their configuration for the weekend after just one Friday practice session and this of course means if a team or driver have ‘gone the wrong way’ they suffer through two qualifying sessions, the Sprint and the Grand Prix.

One solution would be to shift Sprint qualifying to Friday afternoon and hod the shortened version of the grand Prix on Saturday morning. Then the FIA could allow the teams to continue to change their car setup right up to Saturday qualifying for the Grand Prix.

Yet this benefits the teams with bigger strategy teams and data crunching facilities back at base, given their resources often find solutions to the poor track setup before parc ferme begins.

Another solution to ‘spicing up’ the Sprint is to introduce something regularly seen in junior formula racing. Reverse Grids.

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Hamilton U-turn on reverse grids

Reverse grids were mooted as an idea for setting the Grand Prix grid back in 2019 and it was something Lewis Hamilton dismissed out of hand at the time.

Hamilton now appears to have done a U-Turn on the matter and is open to the idea of a reverse grid following the dull affair in Austin this year.

Speaking ahead of the Sprint weekend in Sau Paulo, Lewis revealed he felt the Saturday Sprint in the morning and the Grand Prix qualifying in the afternoon is “not the greatest of days.”

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Risk drivers aim to qualify “last”

“But I like the single practice session straight into qualifying,” he added.

“I think we can learn. I love that we do have a different format, rather than just the same three practice sessions and then the qualifying and the race.” Hamilton echoes the views of many F1 fans and even ex-drivers and commentators like Martin Brundle

“But the best Sprint race I ever had was when I started last (in Brazil 2021) and so I’m in favour of the reverse order,” said Lewis. There due to penalties handed out by the stewards he started the Sprint in last place and drove through the field claiming fifth at the chequered flag.

Of course given the way the points are weighted three times more towards Grand Prix, there is a risk qualifying becomes a farce as drivers try to manipulate their starting position for one event to attain a better place for the Grand Prix. Hamilton recognises this and qualifies his support for reverse grids saying it would be good, “except if we had that then everyone will just try and qualify last!”

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Hamilton: ‘Lengthen the Sprint’

Hamilton also called for a review on the length of the shortened race which is set at one third distance of the Grand Prix on Sunday.

“Maybe the Sprint race should also be a little bit longer because it is 19 laps or something (24 for this weekend’s Sao Paulo event),” Hamilton mused.

Lewis’ Mercedes team mate George Russell however is strongly opposed to the implementation of reverse grids in Formula One as he explained recently.

“I won’t talk on behalf of the drivers, but my own personal view is that I don’t think reverse grid races will work,” said Russell.

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Russell opposes Hamilton support for reverse grids

”Purely because I learned when I raced in Formula 2 and Formula 3, is that if you’ve got the 10 fastest cars, the most challenging car to overtake is the one who you are fighting with.

“If you reverse that grid, you are going to have the quickest car in 10th, trying to overtake the second quickest car in ninth, who is trying to overtake the third quickest car in eight, so each car is trying to overtake their most direct competitor.

“What you’ll probably find is that it’ll just be a DRS train because you might have a Williams leading from a Haas who he can’t quite get past, who is leading from an Alpine who is leading from a McLaren or whoever. The concept won’t work,” Russell asserts.

“The best Sprint races have been when there is tyres degradation, like we saw in Qatar and people on different strategies, and equally in Brazil, the tyres could only just make it 25 laps, and it was a good race.

“But most of the time, in the Sprint races, you put the Medium tyre, and you’re just flat out to the end and there is no good racing.”

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Pit stops in Sprint won’t work

In a Grand Prix the teams are mandated to make at least one stop to change the tyres which creates different strategies and the subsequent tyre offsets create opportunities for overtaking.

Sergio Perez in his Force India days was known as th e’tyre whisperer’ given the number of races he made one stop fewer than the rest of the field making his tyres last the distance and saving 20-30 seconds in the pit lane.

But in a Sprint race this wouldn’t work given the drivers would merely push to the limit on each set of tyres over the shorter distance and even if one stops earlier than expected, the rest of his competitors will follow suit the next time around to cover off any advantage he might gain.

Maybe in the end Max Verstappen is right. “Just scrap the whole thing,” he said after finishing third in the first 100km race of the 2023 season.

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Verstappen solution: “Scrap the whole thing”

“I think it’s just important to go back to what we have, and make sure that every team can fight for a win, that’s what we have to try and aim for and (not) try to implement all this kind of artificial excitement.

“It’s not proper racing, it’s more like gambling. I think I will have more success in Vegas if I go to the casino. So yeah, I like racing, I’m a pure racer and I think this is more for the show.”

As it turned out Max was the best of the drivers over the course of the Sprint weekends in 2023. Below is the stand alone Sprint championship final order and the position in brackets indicates the drivers place relative to their final standings in the F1 drivers’ championship.

1 Max Verstappen 45 (=)
2 Sergio Perez 25 (=)
3 Carlos Sainz 22 (+1)
4 Lando Norris 21 (+2)
5 Charles Leclerc 21 (+2)
6 George Russell 18 (+2)
7 Lewis Hamilton 17 (-4)
8 Oscar Piastri 15 (+1)
9 Fernando Alonso 8 (-4)
10 Pierre Gasly 8 (=)
11 Lance Stroll 6 (=)
12 Yuki Tsunoda 3 (+2)
13 Nico Hulkenberg 3 (+3)
14 Alex Albon 2 (-1)
15 Esteban Ocon 2 (-3)

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