'The sprint is good for the sport': F1 ruler Mohammed ben Sulayem backs 'sprint race' weekends at six grand prix this year... with new format set to be approvedby F1 Commission this week
Mohammed ben Sulayem, the ruler of world motorsport, has given his crucial backing to the radical reform of Formula One’s race weekend schedule.
The FIA president’s views on the revolutionary proposals were unknown until he told Mail Sport on Saturday night:
‘The sprint is good for the sport.’
With his tacit blessing, a new format is now almost certain to be voted into existence this week with the support of the teams.
Under the proposals drawn up by F1 chief executive Stefano Domenicali, the six already designated ‘sprint race’ weekends will pan out like this:
Friday – one practice session followed by qualifying for Sunday’s grand prix.
Saturday will be ‘Sprint Saturday’. It will start with qualifying to determine the starting order for the sprint race,
which will then take place over one-third of the grand-prix distance that afternoon; Sunday will remain as it is now with the grand prix itself.
Sprint qualifying will be staged across three sessions of 12, 10 and eight minutes.
The idea behind the final – and shortest – session is that teams will only be able to complete one flying lap, introducing more jeopardy than is the case in the usual 10-minute shootout.
This schedule, if passed, will be rolled out across six weekends this year, starting in the Azerbaijani capital Baku at the end of this week. Austria, Belgium, Qatar, America (Austin) and Brazil are the other sprint venues.
Non-sprint weekends will continue as they are – three practice sessions, qualifying and grand prix.
Got a feeling it’s gonna be an expensive an painful weekend for some especially with so many teams bringing updates
.SirBastianVettel wrote: ↑23 Apr 2023, 13:11I don't think that many people had issues when we did two Grands Prix in a row at the same venue in 2020.
Agree that it will be more expensive then it used to be and an added problem to the budged, but how does a a weekend be over for a car being wacked in practice? I believe that all teams going to a race weekend will go equipped for such an eventuality save for maybe shortages of some updated parts to be tried.
if they can run some sensors during sprint that would be a good idea but the setup needs to be perfect
Might aswell go straight into qualifying then?PlatinumZealot wrote: ↑23 Apr 2023, 17:38Why do you guys care about the engineers having an nice clear runway for setting up the car? I don't feel sorry for them they will figure it out. That whole challenge of who has done the best job of setting up in limited time will be great to see.
Guy doing analysis found out gearing throughout entire grid didn't change all that much, if at all, so it's a non factor in this regard. I expect top speeds to be around ~5kmh higher on average this year due to other developments.chrisc90 wrote: ↑23 Apr 2023, 13:02Anyone know of any update rumours for Baku?
Could be interesting to watch the top speed charts after the analysis in the 2023 gearing thread.
Last year.
https://fiaresultsandstatistics.motorsp ... t=MaxSpeed