The original plan was to hold six this season, but in the end that was derailed by a debate over the financial implications amid a tighter budget cap.
As a result, this year, as in 2021, there will again be three sprints, with last weekend’s Imola event to be followed by Austria and Brazil.
While plans to run sprints in Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands were dropped, six remains the target for 2023, and that’s what F1 bosses Stefano Domenicali and Ross Brawn will be pushing for today.
The timing is fortunate for them, as Saturday’s Imola sprint was generally well-received, and provided a reminder of the positives of the format.
Brawn was clearly pleased by the way the Imola sprint had unfolded. He remains the biggest supporter of the format, and he’s heavily invested in it as a way of reaching new fans – while not alienating existing ones.
“We’ve always had an objective of trying to get new fans interested in F1,” he told Motorsport.com on Sunday morning. “And we’re achieving it, I think we’re achieving a younger demographic. We’re concerned that F1 gets to be an old white man’s sport.
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari F1-75, passes Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB18, for the lead
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
“You and I have been in it for donkey’s years, but how do we get the new people in, how do we get new fans, how we get fans of all sorts of profile engaged in the sport?
“And we found from an early stage that sort of bite-sized chunks of F1 would be popular. And that’s proven to be the case on social media, with streaming services, YouTube compilations, all the rest of it. And that’s done its job.
“But we also felt that it can be quite appealing to have a half hour race, lots of action, no strategy, so there’s no reason for a fan to have to work out, ‘he’s done his pit stop on lap 13, he’s done his on 17, he’s going to have better tyres.’
“And that’s fantastic for the people who are really engaged in F1, we don’t want to spoil that. But for a…
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