Sebastian Vettel immediately recognised one of the most unsatisfactory aspects of Formula 1’s sprint qualifying format when it was introduced last year.
What did he make of F1 ending a tradition which dates back to the very first world championship of decide the pole position winner using timed laps, and replacing it with a one-third-distance race? “That’s wrong,” stated Vettel.
“Pole is the fastest lap time achieved or the fastest lap time in qualifying,” he continued. “So it gets all a bit confusing.”
Aside from the occasional, necessary evil of grid penalties, this largely holds true. It should have come to no surprise to anyone in F1, when they dreamt up the sprint qualifying format last year, that changing the definition of pole position was going to be a hard sell to fans.
In the first ever sprint qualifying event, held at Silverstone, Lewis Hamilton lined up first but was passed off the line by Max Verstappen. With that, for the first time, pole position had been…