04/11/2023
NEWS STORY
Team bosses share their thoughts as Toto Wolff reveals that F1 bosses are in talks with a view to amending the Sprint weekend format.
Despite his sarcasm at Thursday's press conference it is clear that Max Verstappen is still no fan of the Sprint, and while many fans and some drivers disagree with him, there has been widespread dismissal of the thought of a standalone championship.
Speaking at COTA, Christian Horner admitted that the format needs some jeopardy - though one assumes he wasn't referring to the American TV quiz show, though, on second thoughts, that might not be such a bad idea! - in order to make it worthwhile, as other still believe the Sprint undermines the main event.
Speaking to Sky Sports, Toto Wolff revealed that initial talks have taken place with Stefano Domenicali about revising the format.
"We've been talking with Stefano," he said. "Obviously, it's his decision, but then you can correlate it easier.
"You do the sprint shootout on Friday and then the second qualifying for the race, which would be Saturday, two o'clock is the time we know. And it would create maybe less confusion."
"We obviously have the sporting advisory committee meeting this week," said Aston Martin's Tom McCullough. "There's been discussions about how to improve how we go about the Sprint event.
"The Sprint event was brought in for a reason, you know, the fans," he continued. "From a technical point of view, it's a headache. The car goes into parc ferme after one practice session and it is difficult. But from a commercial side and from a fan side, I think there are elements that are exciting.
"It needs tweaking," he admitted, "it's been tweaked already. But i think it needs tweaking a bit more because even my Dad who's quite an understander and follower of Formula 1 sometimes says to me, 'so just remind me, is it qualifying on Friday for the main race?'
"I just think if somebody at that level is having questions, the fans are going to get confused. So our job is to put a simpler, better, more understandable format, still have the excitement of two races, I think."
"For sure, the Sprint weekend has a lot of merits," agreed Ferrari's Diego Ioverno, "because there's many competitive sessions, you get as more interesting you can generate.
"It's possible to improve probably, everybody is having a thought," he added. "We discussed in the Sporting Committee.
"There is still not a definitive proposal but our target will be once that FIA and F1 have decided the format, teams will have to work together to make it good for the spectators, good for us because it's quite tricky.
"If you move the Sprint race on Saturday morning, then you have to make sure that you allow enough gap to teams to react for qualifying in case of problems and stuff like that.
"There are also other options on the table. We will work together because at the end this is our target now, to make it as good as possible for our fans."
Check out our Saturday gallery from Interlagos City here.