The winds of change could be about to sweep through F1 when it comes to its Sprint weekends, with talk of the format being tweaked to bring an extra qualifying session into the mix.
Sprint was introduced back in 2021 as a way of adding more ‘meaningful action’ to a Grand Prix weekend.
Friday would lose a practice session and see qualifying moved to follow FP1, whilst Saturday would have FP2 followed by the Sprint: a race a third-length of a full Grand Prix.
It was kept for 2022, with points on offer for the top eight, whilst the grid for the Sprint was set by Friday’s qualifying and the result of the Sprint set the grid for the GP.
More changes could be on the way before our first Sprint of the season at round four of the world championship, too, which takes place at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku at the end of April.
Indeed, a second qualifying session could be added to the Sprint schedule of a race weekend, meaning the running order would be thus:
Friday: FP1 and qualifying to set the grid for the Grand Prix
Saturday: Qualifying to set the grid for the Sprint, followed by the Sprint itself
Sunday: Grand Prix
It would add another competitive session to the race weekend, something that was reportedly on the mind of F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali lately.
Indeed, he was quoted recently as saying he feels that standard F1 weekends should perhaps look at having fewer practice sessions over the weekend, though he has since clarified those comments saying that he and the sport currently has no plans to scrap them.
Even so, the idea of adding another session that ‘matters’, for want of a better word, is one that would likely appeal to key stakeholders and it is thought that the teams are onboard with the proposed Sprint tweaks.
With a few weeks to finalise any changes, though, nothing is as yet certain. The situation is still fluid and the touted changes are not official with room for them to be adjusted further yet.
Time will tell as to how the new Sprint weekend format looks, if it does indeed change at all, with the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend taking place from April 28th to April 30th.
