HOW CAN FORMULA 1 FIX THE SPRINT FORMAT?
Did you see the first new F1 sprint race the other week?
That was as exciting and intense as it could get! I absolutely loved watching it as a race fan. I could go on about that lap one incident in particular, between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, but that has been beaten to a bloody pulp by experts and fans alike on the internet. I’ll leave that intense subject for the end of the season when the dust has settled and the champion has been crowned.
Also, how about the new 2022 F1 car? In my opinion, it looks like INDYCAR and F1 decided to birth a “Hot Wheels” toy together, but I’ll touch on that subject in another post. A lot happened in a short amount of time, so I will focus on the sprint race itself for this post.
The Experiment!
The British Grand Prix became an experiment of all sorts leading up to the weekend, becoming the first ever sold out COVID crowd during the pandemic. All the fans had to be vaccinated or come back with a negative test result before entering the Silverstone Circuit.
As a fan it was interesting to see how quickly the twenty Formula 1 teams could turn around a race prepared car with only one practice session on the Friday and then head straight into qualifying. Oddly enough the provisional pole sitter Lewis Hamilton wasn’t down in the history books as the provisional pole driver. He was given the “Speed King Award'' before the sprint race. Sebastian Vettel commented on motorsport.com , "Pole is the fastest lap time achieved, or the fastest lap time in qualifying. It gets all a bit confusing, but obviously it depends. If this is a one-off, then it doesn't do much harm. However, if we end up having 10 sprint races next year or in the future, then I think it's just a bit weird. So, pole position should go to the guy who goes fastest in one lap."
I tend to agree with Sebastian Vettel here, let the pole award winner keep that stat and give the sprint race a different column and maybe change it all up a bit. The whole weekend was like watching something out of a video game. It was fast paced and random at the best of times, but it was still extremely fun to watch from your couch.
I love watching the underdogs in racing. I’m a George Russell fan! He keeps outperforming his Williams Mercedes on a regular basis these days, but still hasn’t cracked a point for the team. Not only did he put his boat anchor of a car inside Q3 yet again this time, but he also was racing for seventh spot in the sprint race before getting docked a penalty and ending up in ninth. All after his collision with Carlos Sainz on the opening lap of the sprint race. As a driver myself, he must be pretty frustrated after that weekend, where he qualified his car in eighth and ended the sprint race in ninth and still did not get a single point (if that was the main event, he would’ve racked up two championship points by now) for all his efforts.
Fun fact!
Max Verstappen became the first driver ever in Formula 1 to score points on a race weekend without actually racing the main event because of the big accident he had with Lewis Hamilton. It has really become a chess match between those two drivers at the moment and if they keep adding chess pieces into the championship, like the sprint race, the race season will only get more heated from now until the end of the championship. I’m all for this!
Before I go into my own example of how I’d run a sprint race there is a video from Chain Bear on YouTube that you should all check out before you read any further.
Fixing the sprint format!
Ok I’m glad you enjoyed the video! Now here’s how I would fix the ‘Formula 1 Sprint’:
Firstly, I’d leave FP1 (free practice one), but make it 90 minutes or even 120 minutes, as one single practice session. If this happens every weekend going forward in 2022 each team will be given a bit more extra time to play and fiddle with their setups of the car before the whole weekend really gets underway.
Secondly, I’d keep the three knock-out stages of qualifying, as it creates excitement for the fans. Up until this point none of that really needs to change, except the winner of qualifying getting called the “speed master/speed king/speed demon/speedy mcspeed face”… you get my drift here. Just call the winner the provisional pole sitter before the sprint race actually takes place and give it, it’s own event. As the old saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. If they wanted to add extra excitement to Q3 maybe they could do a Top 10 Shootout V8 Supercar style format, where each car in Q3 goes out on their own and sets its fastest lap, trying to eliminate each other to become the winner.
Lastly, after all the above has been finalised with the classified results, we move onto the sprint race format. Now here’s where I’d change things up a little bit. Don’t get mad in the comments if you disagree with me, but maybe taking something out of Formula 2’s rulebook here could excite the fans a little more. I think keeping the F1 Sprint a totally different race, as Sebastian Vettel said and awarding points for the top eight, whilst only making it a 10/15 lap race could work. Why am I only bringing up eight points paying positions? Well, the top eight would be reversed in my F1 world now after regular qualifying has finished. Those eight drivers will then be awarded the 2009 FIA, 10–8–6–5–4–3–2–, Formula 1 points structure. This would create excitement and give the fans something to scream and cheer about on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning depending on the schedule and race format for the weekend.
CRAZY TURNS!
It seems that Formula 1 Management are really trying to make the drivers overtake more and more these days with the new regulations this year and moving forward into the future. If you want more excitement in F1 maybe you should just reverse the top eight drivers from the Q3 Qualifying Session for the sprint race and let those drivers battle for more than three points on offer.
If Formula 1 is wanting to go down a similar entertainment route like we see in F2 & F3, you might as well give it a shot if you’re going to give the best drivers in the world their very own sprint race. I’m a nostalgist when it comes to motorsports. I much prefer the original ways of racing on a weekend as it’s less complicated to follow and much easier to understand as a race fan, where it’s only one race to watch on a Sunday. In saying that I am 100% open to a sprint race with Formula 1 going forward.
I think it could create even more excitement for the fastest racing on the planet, but I just can’t see the way of doing things that they recently showed us over this past weekend. If F1 wants their drivers to race hard and fast they will have to increase the budget cap for damage and repair bills whilst awarding more points for a sprint race. It is a great idea to generate a larger fan base. My friends and girlfriend enjoyed watching it, but to me as a fan and a racer myself, it’s just missing something and I can't quite put my finger on it yet.
I could spend ages writing about this, but I’d love to hear your thoughts on the F1 sprint race and how you would fix it in the comments down below.