This is what F1 Drivers Think About Sprint Races As 2023 Venues Confirmed
F1 have just announced the six sprint races that will take place in the 2023 season, even though they received a mix response from driver's and fans last season. We have done a round-up of what the driver's have said about the sprint races so far.
The sprint races in 2023 will take place in Azerbaijan, Austria, Belgium, Qatar, United States, and Brazil.
Max Verstappen
Max Verstappen has been quite vocal about his thoughts on the sprint race, and he is less than impressed. He said:
“I don’t like it. For me, the weekend format I don’t really enjoy. I don’t mind the one practice and going straight into qualifying – I think it probably is even better for me. I just don’t like that there’s no feeling with it.
“All the time when I do these races, it’s about, ‘oh, let’s not have damage, just make sure that you stay in the top three'. For me, that’s not really a race.
“I think we should just stick to one race. I don’t understand what the problem is with that, because I think we’ve had so many exciting races, so you don’t need to add one-third of the race distance. Everyone is super-careful anyway, because if you are fighting for third and you have a little touch, you drop back to be last and you know your race on Sunday is going to be really tough, so probably you’re not going to risk it. And that’s not what the race should be about.”
Sergio Perez
Verstappen's Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez felt the same, that there is a lot to risk and not a lot to gain.
“I don’t think they’re great fun. I think they’re mainly done for the fans, so if they enjoy them, then good. But I don’t particularly enjoy them.
“I just feel there is not a lot of action. There is not a lot of overtaking, or it doesn’t change as much, the things going into tomorrow’s race, which is the main one.
“You cannot take too many risks because you can be heavily affected trying to pass people. It’s not like the actual race.
"You hardly gain anything, but you can lose a lot.”
Charles Leclerc
Leclerc disagreed with Verstappen saying that it makes the race weekend a bit more interesting.
“Yeah I like the Friday. Especially because normally it’s a bit of a boring Friday on normal race weekends, you’ve got FP1, FP2 and you do many laps for not much but now on sprint weekend you need to be straight away on it in FP1 and then you’ve got qualifying straight away so that I enjoy.”
Carlos Sainz
Carlos Sainz has said there is “good potential” in the sprint format, but is concerned that it will eventually put too much on the driver's plates.
“It’s something that we are discussing with FOM and FIA to maybe spice up a bit the sprint weekend. I think there is good potential there.
“Obviously on a standard weekend, we are going towards more number of races. But for some reason that maybe we didn’t expect this year, both Thursday and Friday have become a lot longer for the drivers.
“The amount of media that we are facing every day, and the amount of time that we are spending at the track in meetings and activities has increased a lot, even as we are going towards a higher number of races.
“So, we are going to need to find a way to control this in a more efficient way, let’s say.”
Lewis Hamilton
Hamilton gave the sprint races praise, as someone who has been racing for such a long time he seemed happy to have something change some of the race weekends up a bit.
“I think we have to be very selective of where we have the sprint races. You can look at the season and see where all the overtakes are and you can put the sprint races in those places.
“I like the format, because it’s just different. We’ve had the same Thursday to Sunday for God-knows how long. The race is not always the greatest, but it does create a little more option. But sometimes there’s no overtaking, so we should hopefully learn from the races where there has been no overtaking in most of the races and put them in places like Brazil, which does create a lot of opportunity. Or somewhere like Baku.”
George Russell
George Russell, who won his first Grand Prix in Brazil, called for sprint races to be 50% longer.
“I’m not a big fan, I have to admit. The race should be 50 percent longer, so the tyres will wear out more. The drivers may then have to manage their tyres a bit more, and then bigger differences between the cars will emerge.
“Right now everyone is just going full throttle. The difference in lap time is not big enough to overtake, unless you have not qualified in the usual position.”
Lando Norris
Shortly after Verstappen spoke about the sprint races, Lando Norris said he agreed with him. He said:
“Growing up always just having qualifying and then the race, that’s always what I’ve known Formula 1 to be. So in a way, I’m with Max on that. I love the build-up of pressure of having qualifying and one race – nothing coming in between, that’s just the structure of it.
“I like Formula 1 how it is. Just because I’ve grown up watching that and being part of it. Sometimes I don’t like change, but I also don’t mind at the same time.”
Fernando Alonso
Fernando Alonso acknowledged that the sprint race has been added in as a way of making the race weekend more interesting for fans watching so he said that fans should be given the opportunity to vote as to whether they should carry on or not.
“I think this format is made for the fans, to improve the spectacle and to attract different and new fans to the sport.
“So I think we should ask them and see what they think. What did they think of the weekend, what went well, what didn’t go well? And if we have to change something, they have to decide.
“Because I think for the teams it wasn’t better, it wasn’t worse. It was just different. We prepared the weekend in a different way, but at the end it’s the same for everyone.
“So I think we have to put the fans first. And they have to tell us what they didn’t like and try to improve it.”
Valtteri Bottas
Alfa Romeo driver, Valtteri Bottas, has said that the F1 need to choose the circuits wisely as some will suit the sprint race more than others.
“You need to choose the tracks carefully. It’s still worth having a sprint here, but I think it could be in better places. So let’s see what they come up with.
“For us it definitely seems like the longer the race goes, the better it is for our car.
“I think we’re pretty good on the tyres. We initially struggled a bit to keep up with the cars ahead, but then it was vice-versa at the end.”
Sebastian Vettel
Sebastian Vettel, who has just entered his retirement, said that he felt it was unfair for the pole position to be decided from the sprint race. He said:
"I think that's wrong. Pole is the fastest lap time achieved, or the fastest lap time in qualifying. It gets all a bit confusing. But obviously it depends. If this is a one-off, then it doesn't do much harm.
"But, if we end up having 10 sprint races next year or in the future, then I think it's just a bit weird. So, pole position should go to the guy who goes fastest in one lap."
Lance Stroll
Lance Stroll said that he thinks it could lead to boring races, which is the exact opposite of what F1 wanted to achieve.
“Yeah I think that’s something they’ve got to rethink but it could lead to some boring races, strategies can be pretty straightforward when it’s a free tyre choice for everyone. So maybe that’s something they need to rethink, but we’ll see how the next few Sprint race events go.
“I think we have to see in the next few Sprint races how it goes. There’s definitely some modifications I would make on the schedule. This weekend there was a lot of waiting around on Friday, we started very late and then just one free practice - maybe there’s a way of getting two free practices in before qualifying.
“I still think the fastest lap should be rewarded with pole, not the Sprint race qualifying winner or whatever you want to call it.I think there’s definitely some things that Formula 1 might need to rethink. But it’s cool doing two races.
“Maybe they can extend the first one a little bit to create a little bit of a tyre delta and then throw in the mandatory soft start or qualifying tyre start for the main race which mixes strategy up, because I can see races being pretty dull if we always see the same strategy between all the cars.”
Nicholas Latifi
Latifi kept it short and sweet with his comments on sprint race weekends, he said:
“I’m a fan of these weekends as it’s exciting to change up the normal format.”
Pierre Gasly
The Frenchman who is moving from AlphaTauri to Alpine for the 2023 season commented on the sprint races, saying:
“I clearly don’t have a love relationship with the sprint race just based on the pure results point of view. Last year’s been quite shocking for us every time with a sprint race.”
“At the end of the day, based on last year, I wasn’t a big fan. But I’m not [saying] it has absolutely no place in Formula 1.
“I think it’s good that we try it this year and hopefully just for consistency it might be better to stick to one format in the future. But let’s see how it goes this year. Maybe with these cars, new regulations, new cars, we get a lot better show and everybody loves it. Time will tell.”
Kevin Magnussen
Haas driver Kevin Magnussen, who took the first pole position for the team as well as himself at the 2022 Brazilian GP, commented on the sprint races:
“I kind of like it, Max has a good point that the risk that you want to take in the sprint is less because it decides the position for Sunday so I think maybe a good tweak could be to separate that so you can go for it. I do enjoy going from Practice 1 straight into Qualifying as well because as Max says, it puts a lot of pressure on to find the rhythm quickly and get the setup right because I think that when there’s three practices it’s quite a lot, so anyway I kinda like it.”