31/03/2023
NEWS STORY
As the tinkering continues, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix Sprint weekend looks likely to feature two qualifying sessions.
As part of the plan to spice up the show and give meaning to every session in which the cars appear, it is anticipated, as previously suggested by F1 boss, Stefano Domenicali that Sprint weekends will feature two qualifying sessions.
The talk in Melbourne is that the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend, which features the first of six Sprints this year, will see free practice on Friday morning with qualifying for Sunday's Grand Prix in the afternoon.
Saturday morning would feature a stand-alone qualifying session for the subsequent Sprint.
As if this wasn't enough, as Two Ton Ted from Teddington might say, to make it a little more interesting, there is talk of limiting the number of tyre sets available to each driver to the bare minimum. Indeed, there is even talk of qualifying for the Sprint consisting of each driver being allowed just one timed lap on a clear track.
"We are talking about having a second qualifying at the moment,” confirmed Guenther Steiner. "We don't know how we do it and if we do it."
"Hopefully, we can tidy up the format for the sprint races coming up that are a bit more dynamic," added Christian Horner. “I know that the sporting directors have been working hard on that and hopefully we can get that finalised.”
On a day that Melbourne saw 110,000 fans pass through the turnstiles, as confirmed by Domenicali, in terms of the move to hold fewer practice sessions, Otmar Szafnauer said: "I think we need a good balance. I think we still need a bit of practice to dial in the car to get the set-up right. I think it will favour drivers that are experienced if we do reduce the practice.
"It might hurt some of the rookies," he added. "So I understand what Stefano was saying in the Formula 1 Commission that we should look at every session that we're out on track to make it interesting for the fans. And I think a practice session or two would still be interesting, even though we may do some other things."
"I agree," added Mario Isola. "We collect useful data from the practice sessions, for the usage of the tyres, possible strategies. And we need a good balance, probably.
"I understand also, the position of Stefano, to try to encourage sessions that are interesting for our spectators. I believe the discussion started from the role of FP2 during the Sprint events, with the cars that are in parc ferme - so, very limited possibility for the teams to react to any change.
"That was still interesting for us, for the tyre, but it's not enough. So I'm sure that we can find a good solution together with the teams, they have sporting directors that are very good and discussing any small detail to try to avoid any unintended consequences. So I'm sure that we can find a good balance between the two."
"I think we need to take it step-by-step," said Steiner, "get over this hurdle of how we can do a second qualifier on the weekend in the Sprint events, and then maybe go the next step, what are we doing next?
"I think we don't have to sort out everything in one shot now all of a sudden, not doing free practice sessions and stuff. I don't think that’s what Stefano wanted to say. Stefano had a little bit more of (putting) his vision out there for the future, because that is, I think, what he has to do for FOM - have a vision, where are we going?
"So I think let's take it step-by-step, sort that one out and then see how much practice we need to make the car safe to get enough data that you can set them up and to give Pirelli enough data so they've got something decent to work with."
Check out our Friday gallery from Melbourne here.