More details have emerged of Formula 1’s plan to revise its sprint race format for the next round of the championship in Azerbaijan.
Teams have discussed a shake-up of the format which would see the sprint race become a stand-alone event with its own qualifying session.
Under the proposal Fridays at sprint events would remain unchanged, with a single hour of practice and a standard qualifying session. However that qualifying session would decide the grid for Sunday’s grand prix instead of Saturday’s sprint race.
A new sprint race qualifying session would take place on Saturday morning instead of second practice. This would run to a three-part qualifying format much like those seen at regular events, albeit with shorter timings, the upshot of which is likely to mean drivers who reach Q3 only have time to perform a single lap.
In an ordinary qualifying session, Q3 lasts 12 minutes. Several drivers who reached the final 10 last year had enough time to set two flying laps.
However qualifying at the high-speed, barrier-lined street Baku City Circuit has often been disrupted by red flags due to crashes in recent years. The 2021 session was interrupted by a total of four red flags, including one in each phase of qualifying.
The addition of an extra qualifying session, in place of an hour of practice, will post new questions for how drivers manage their tyre supplies. The tyre allocation drivers receive at sprint events is different to that seen at regular grands prix: Each competitor has two sets of hard tyres, four mediums and six softs for the weekend.
The revised sprint qualifying format is expected to be approved in the week before the race, which takes place on April 30th. Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said last week teams are aligned in support of the change as they believe it will make the weekend “more dynamic”.
2023 F1 season
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