Your opinion on the F1 sprint probably falls into one of two camps.
Either you’re a big fan who relishes the chance to trade in two practice sessions for more competitive action, or you’re a traditionalist who sees the short race as nothing more than a novelty that distracts from the main event.
Your opinion probably hasn’t changed now that this season’s six sprints are in the books.
Watch every practice, qualifying and race of the 2023 FIA Formula One World Championship live and ad-break free in racing on Kayo Sports. Join now and start streaming instantly >
Finding a compromise that satisfies everyone is Formula 1’s off-season challenge when it considers ways to revitalise the experimental format.
The sprint was introduced in 2021 to liven up the same-old schedule of three practice sessions and one qualifying hour before each grand prix.
By shuffling around the agenda, every day features at least one competitive session, and cutting practice time by two thirds increased the jeopardy.
“I think it‘s exciting every time you get in the car there’s something to fight for,” Lance Stroll said.
“After having the sprint in Austin and then going to Mexico and kind of having that more normal weekend, I felt like there was a lot of practice and Friday was a long day. Austin was kind of just full-on — every session just [had] something to fight for.”
There’s also the need to battle viewer fatigue. With the calendar swelling well beyond 20 races — 24 are scheduled for next year and there’s constant talk of the sport striking 25 or more before the end of the decade — variety can pique waning interest.
It’s probably not surprising that four of this year’s six sprints were slotted into the second half of the season.
“I think there’s room for a few of them across the calendar,” Daniel Ricciardo said. “It does change it up a little bit.
“If we have obviously in a season of 23 to 24 races, if half a dozen of them are sprints, I think it adds a little bit of spice.
“But I wouldn‘t want to go down, say, the MotoGP route and have it every weekend.”
The sprint was originally used to set the grid for the grand prix, with qualifying setting the sprint grid and the sprint results setting the Sunday starting order.
That was deemed problematic because the winner of the sprint rather than the fastest qualifier was awarded pole position — a statistician’s nightmare.
This year Saturday was carved out just for the short race, with sprint qualifying in the early afternoon and the sprint itself in the evening.
With more points awarded, it was hoped the sprint would become a more important part of the weekend without interfering with the grand prix.
But it’s fallen flat.
PIT TALK PODCAST: Max Verstappen is enjoying the most successful season in F1 history after seeing off Lando Norris in a surprisingly close battle for victory in Brazil. Meanwhile, the sport is considering new weekend formats to revitalise the sprint race for 2024.
Saturday comprises barely more than an hour of F1 action, and the entire day is carved out for a race worth just eight points.
It feels like a waste of time, and with grand prix qualifying still on Friday, Saturday feels obtrusive.
“It’s got to mean something,” Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner told Sky Sports. “You could tell at the end of [Saturday’s sprint] we’re not quite sure whether we congratulate each other or not.
“I think it’s got to have more meaning to it.”
And then of course there are those who want nothing to do with it.
“Just a normal race weekend, please. I’m not interested in any change. I don’t like it,” three-time champion Max Verstappen said, having previously tied his eventual retirement to F1 continuing down the sprint path.
So it’s back to the drawing board for Formula 1, which must not find a way to make the sprint important enough to earn its place but not too important that it overshadows the grand prix.
It must fit into the flow of the weekend without affecting Sunday’s outcome.
It must create jeopardy without being a total novelty.
And above all it must be interesting to keep people coming back through the weekend and through the season.
It’s a tough proposition.
Verstappen wins crash-filled Brazil GP | 02:52
THE FAVOURED SOLUTION
One solution appearing to gain traction in the paddock is to restore logical order to the sessions.
Sole practice would remain on Friday afternoon, with sprint qualifying following later that evening and the sprint race taking place first thing Saturday.
Grand prix qualifying would then return to Saturday afternoon, as it is at every other round, anchoring the weekend for viewers before Sunday’s grand prix.
“It’s the time we know, and it would create maybe less confusion,” Mercedes boss Toto Wolff told Sky Sports. “Then you can [mentally] correlate it easier.
“If it makes sense from the audience point of view, then obviously we need to do it.”
But there are issues getting this proposal over the line.
The first is that putting a race on Saturday risks a big crash wiping one or more cars out of crucial grand prix qualifying.
If the idea is to minimise disruption for the main event, this may not be the solution.
“You have to make sure that you allow enough gap to teams to react for qualifying in case of problems and stuff like that,” Ferrari sporting director Diego Ioverno said.
“There are also other options on the table. We will work together because at the end this is our target now, to make it as good as possible for our fans.”
Ricciardo savages ‘f***** s***’ rules | 00:34
THE SPRINT HAS MORE PROBLEMS THAN JUST SCHEDULING
There’s also a more fundamental problem with the way the sprint race pre-empts the grand prix result.
The São Paulo Grand Prix was a great example. In the sprint we got a close battle between Max Verstappen and Lando Norris but discovered the McLaren had a small but decisive shortcoming on tyre wear.
The exact same thing panned out in the grand prix, just over three stints rather than one.
“Saturday‘s too revealing of what’s going to happen on Sunday,” Carlos Sainz said. “It is basically the first stint of the race of Sunday … and this doesn’t help the show for the main race that is the grand prix.”
Five times this season a grand prix podium has featured at least two of the three drivers who finished on the sprint podium 24 hours earlier, including Lewis Hamilton before he was disqualified from the Untied States Grand Prix.
Two podiums — in Azerbaijan and Qatar — featured all three of the same drivers. Sao Paulo would’ve been the third but for Fernando Alonso pipping Sergio Pérez to third by 0.053 seconds.
One solution could be to rework the parc fermé rules, which currently require teams to lock in set-up for the entire sprint weekend after one practice session.
It’s a key reason behind Hamilton and Charles Leclerc’s disqualifications in the United States, and it played a role in Mercedes badly butchering its set-up in Brazil.
It’s also why sprint and grand prix performances are so similar — the cars are fundamentally unchanged.
Perhaps an alternative is to extend first practice on Friday by half an hour and use the results to set the grid for a Friday sprint — similar to how MotoGP uses practice times to decide who goes directly to the top 12 on the grid.
Parc fermé rules could then be relaxed on Saturday morning for a shorter final practice before clamping down again for qualifying, from which point the weekend continues as normal with teams having had the chance to reassess their set-up approaches.
“You’d better try something else on Saturday,” Sainz said. “Is that reverse grids? Is that single lap qualifying? I don‘t know.
“But I think given that the sprint format is a bit of an experiment going on right now in Formula 1, I would be open to keep experimenting to see which format is best, because for me the one we have now, just Saturday, doesn‘t feel completely right for what then comes on Sunday.”
Leclerc fuming after formation lap crash | 01:03
THE ALTERNATIVES
There’s also dissatisfaction over sprint qualifying given it’s barely differentiated from grand prix qualifying. The so-called ‘sprint shootout’ is essentially the same format but with a stipulation to use the medium tyre in the first two segments.
It’s shorter but still lasts 45 minutes — longer than the sprint itself.
“It’s got to be more of an event to itself than an extended long run with a medal at the end,” Horner told Sky Sports.
“Why not take championship order and just reverse the top 10 for the [sprint]?
“I think there’s really merit to doing something, but I don’t think we’ve got it quite right at the moment.”
Despite reverse-grid racing having been anathema to the sport not long ago, Pérez, for one, said he’d welcome the novelty format for the sprint race.
“I think it would mix up things and create more opportunities, a lot more overtaking,” he said. “If we want to keep this format, give it a go on something quite different, because I think for the last two years this sort of event hasn’t brought a lot of good racing.”
Indeed we may already have had a glimpse of the potential of a reverse-grid sprint — in Brazil in 2021, probably the format’s most memorable event.
Lewis Hamilton started the sprint last and finished 5th in an overtaking fest, making one pass every 1.6 laps. He was then demoted to 10th on Sunday and beat Verstappen to victory in another overtaking masterclass.
Sprint racing is also familiar to most drivers, with both Formula 3 and Formula 2 making use of a reversed top 10 or top 12 for their Saturday sprints.
‘Oh my goodness me!’ | 01:12
WHAT ABOUT A SEPARATE CHAMPIONSHIP?
But reverse grids will surely be a bridge too far for purists in the mission to satisfy all those competing priorities.
Some traditionalists are still reeling from the idea that Verstappen won his championship this season in a sprint race; imagine a title being decided because the pole-getter had to start from 10th while his rival qualified 10th but cruised away from pole position.
Could their concerns be ameliorated by carving out the sprint results to form a separate championship entirely, with points counting towards a sprint title and not towards the drivers and constructors world championships?
Had the sprint races contributed to their own title this year, the results would look marginally different to the season overall.
Sprint points, drivers
1. Max Verstappen: 45 points (4 wins)
2. Sergio Pérez: 25 points (1 win)
3. Carlos Sainz: 22 points
4. Lando Norris: 21 points
5. Charles Leclerc: 21 points
6. George Russell: 18 points
7. Lewis Hamilton: 17 points
8. Oscar Piastri: 15 points (1 win)
9. Pierre Gasly: 8 points
10. Fernando Alonso: 8 points
Meanwhile, you can clearly tell which teams have excelled in the shorter races by looking at the sprint constructors championship, where Ferrari would’ve come under threat from McLaren late — despite McLaren failing to score in the first two sprint events.
Sprint points, constructors
1. Red Bull Racing: 70 points (5 wins)
2. Ferrari: 43 points
3. McLaren: 36 points (1 win)
4. Mercedes: 35 points
5. Aston Martin: 14 points
6. Alpine: 10 points
7. AlphaTauri: 3 points
8. Haas: 3 points
9. Williams: 2 points
10. Alfa Romeo: 0 points
But there would likely be limited enthusiasm for a separate championship in the same way that — let’s be honest — there’s limited excitement for who wins the award for most pole positions or fastest pit stop of the year.
The world championship is the main draw. Encouraging teams and drivers to give their all to win a side quest won’t elicit the desired outcome.
It’s a complex problem to solve, and there’s no perfect solution. Formula 1 should be praised for willing to experiment with a format only a few years ago appeared locked in stone without totally up-ending the series in pursuit for online clicks.
What it comes up with for next season will be interesting.