How Baku’s sprint format change exposed F1’s biggest fault

Formula 1 has rarely had such a frenetic weekend as that in Baku, as the new sprint format left little down time for teams. The intensity of it all, and the extra headaches and stress faced by mechanics and drivers, prompted plenty of debate among fans and paddock figures about whether or not this new era of in-your-face entertainment was the right thing to do.

But while opinions still remain divided (and perhaps will be forever) over sprint races being a part of F1 at all, what the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend did expose was something that almost everyone agrees on: the racing isn’t that good right now. There was a certain irony that, amid all the worries of two qualifying sessions and a Saturday sprint taking away some of the shine of the main race, it was the actual grand prix that was the worst part of the entire weekend.

Straightforward DRS overtakes past Charles Leclerc by the Red Bulls, and a bit of drama around the timing of Max Verstappen’s pitstop, were pretty much all to get excited about as cars ran around in DRS trains for most of the afternoon. It was little wonder that Mercedes boss Toto Wolff offered a quite downbeat assessment of the spectacle after the chequered flag as he bemoaned a race where two cars ‘sailed off into the sunset’.

“Today wasn’t a thriller,” he said. “Just no overtaking, even with a big pace difference. It made it not great entertainment.”

It was not just that Red Bull dominated another race in 2023 that robbed the afternoon of spectacle; it was that there was a lack of action throughout the field. Just 18 official overtakes in the race was the worst there has ever been in Baku, and much fewer than the 40-50 that it had in its early years.

The hints that F1 2023’s quality of racing doesn’t look too promising were there in the first races of the season, but were perhaps not made obvious by cars being out of position (like Verstappen in Saudi Arabia) or other chaos (the Melbourne red flags). But with cars pretty much in performance order in Baku, allied to tyres that seemed well able to go the duration, it triggered pretty much zero action.

The spectacle in Baku was decidedly lacking as cars queued up behind one another, making little impression

Photo by: Mark Sutton

So after all the fanfare and hype about the new generation of ground effect rules from 2022 delivering a super spectacle F1 for years to come, have things already fallen short? Wolff felt it was perhaps too early to think that the current ruleset needed a rethink.

PLUS: Why F1's new rules can't yet be ruled a total success

“I think after a race weekend like this, we must not talk it down overall and say that is the wrong direction and we need to change completely,” he said. “It is more about understanding why was it not so entertaining.”

Indeed, there are plenty of factors at play here – some of which are interconnected. First, Baku itself has a tendency of being a race of extremes when it comes to its spectacle. It has either produced chaotic thrillers full of drama, or they have been processions as drivers adopt conservative mode in the belief that if they make it to the finish they will be in the points.

Drivers have become increasingly aware that the 2023 cars are not as good for following as last year’s machinery, so the last thing needed was to reduce passing opportunities

As Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur said afterwards: “If you look over the last 10 years, it's really up and down because very often you have a DRS train. If the first car of the train has a huge top speed, you can do 200 laps like this, and you will never have someone able to overtake.”

Things also were not helped by the timing of the safety car, which came slightly too early for some – and meant a longer than anticipated final stint on the hards that pushed drivers into tyre conservation mode. Some of F1’s worst races are when drivers are forced to carefully manage their rubber in such circumstances, as it steers them away from wanting to push too hard.

There is no doubt that tyres – and especially the way the cars still slide more when following others to increase degradation or overheating – remain central to the F1 spectacle; and it is a tough balancing act to deliver rubber that ticks the boxes in terms of allowing both a strategy spectacle and the ability of drivers to push to the max.

The racing certainly was also not helped by the shortening of the DRS zone in Baku by 100 metres – which perhaps was the difference between overtaking moves being impossible and there being a sniff. This FIA call ahead of the weekend did not go down well with drivers, as they have become increasingly aware that the 2023 cars are not as good for following as last year’s machinery, so the last thing needed was to reduce passing opportunities.

The shorter DRS zone was blamed by several drivers including Hamilton for the uneventful race

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

As Azerbaijan GP race winner Sergio Perez said: “I feel these cars are generating a bit more downforce, and by generating that little more downforce, the car behind struggles a little bit more to follow.

“In my opinion, it wasn’t the right thing to shorten up the DRS, because it's getting harder to overtake than last year already in itself, so it's something we should review.”

Paddock sources have indicated that the downforce levels of the 2023 cars right now are what teams had anticipated they would be at the end of the season. Throw that element into the pot alongside the reality that the ground effect cars do not have as a good a slipstream effect as the older generation rules and that leads to a double whammy. The current cars still cannot follow each other close enough in the corners and then cannot make up ground on the straights.

World champion Max Verstappen also reckoned that things were not helped by the weight of the cars.

“Like Checo said, I think the more downforce we generate - and that, of course, will always be every year - if you keep the rules the same it will be harder to pass,” he said.

“And I think also, because of the weight of the cars we have nowadays, because they're quite heavy, in the low speed it’s a bit harder to follow because as soon as you have a tiny moment with that weight, it becomes a bigger slide, it's harder on the tyres so you overheat the tyres more.

“And also with these new type of cars, you have to run them super stiff whereas I remember like 2015 or ‘16, you could do sometimes a few different lines, you could run a kerb because the cars were quite - well, not soft - but it's still a lot softer than what we run now. You could do a few different kinds of techniques and lines, but that is really, really hard nowadays because the cars just don't allow it.”

Verstappen believes the bulk of current F1 cars doesn't help with wheel-to-wheel racing

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images

It would be premature to suggest that F1 needs to fast track a rules overhaul to improve the racing after what we saw in Baku, but equally grand prix racing’s chiefs should not put their heads in the sand and simply hope that things will improve over time. It is important that some deeper analysis is undertaken, especially with input from drivers, about why things are not working as well as they should be.

Is it down to car performance, the nature of the tyres, the DRS zones, or is there something else at play?

F1 and its owners Liberty Media have done an amazing job to bring a new generation of fans to the series as it rides the crest of a wave of popularity. But amid the party vibe of sell-out grand prix weekends, and format shake-ups to deliver entertainment on every day, there is one thing that must remain the priority for everything that is done in the series: the quality of the racing on Sundays.

And right now, it is simply not good enough.

F1 will need to look into why Baku was such a disappointing race weekend

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images