The F1 sprint race element that should be dropped

“I'd completely forgotten that that we had a sprint race there!”

To be fair to Charles Leclerc, he’s got a lot else to consider right now. There’s a title fight on, with Ferrari hoping to finally end a 14-year title drought. And it’s off to an excellent start from both driver and team, which is competing on home soil at Imola this weekend.

There, as Leclerc was amusingly reminded after his dominant Melbourne win, no doubt, and deservingly, dominating his thoughts as he spoke to the press, the first sprint race weekend of the new season will take place. It’ll be the fourth in the championship’s history since the sprint format’s 2021 debut.

Silverstone, Monza and Interlagos were the host races for the altered weekend last year, with only the last of those three getting to do so again in 2022 (the Red Bull Ring is the other sprint race venue this year). All three 2021 sprint race weekends were memorable, for wildly different reasons.

The Silverstone weekend had two sensational lap-one scraps between Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton – with the grand prix start ending in their controversial Copse crash. The Monza event ended with McLaren’s famous 1-2 and Daniel Ricciardo’s return to the top step of the podium. And Interlagos went down as Hamilton’s incredible charge from last on the sprint grid to GP victory, incorporating an engine-change grid penalty, as he channelled his qualifying disqualification fury into the finest driving display from any driver throughout the 2021 campaign.

That was a lot of excitement. But how much at each was down to the sprint race timetable change overall? There’s a solid argument that Silverstone and Monza respectively worked out the way they did because there was a second race.

In Britain, Hamilton knew he could no longer afford to back down against Verstappen’s wheel-to-wheel aggression, after the Dutchman’s points lead had reached a 2021 high of 33 with his sprint win, and that if the Red Bull led after lap one again the GP was effectively over.

Verstappen's victory in the 2021 Silverstone sprint preceded the fireworks in the grand prix proper the following day

Photo by: Red Bull Content Pool

In Italy, the start woes for Hamilton and Verstappen in each of the races helped Ricciardo climb the order – although that event’s conclusion also must have the GP absence of sprint winner Valtteri Bottas (thanks to his grid penalty) factored in. Plus, Red Bull’s long pitstop dropped Verstappen out of his pursuit of Ricciardo and onto a collision course with Hamilton.

In Sao Paulo, it’s hard to see any impact of the sprint format given Hamilton was surely set to win both races using his new engine’s added power punch before his qualifying result was thrown out. Then, it became all about his incredible recovery, even as Bottas was making himself the current sprint win record holder by defeating Verstappen (by then much happier to bank guaranteed points with a safe second for his title push).

Last year, Verstappen’s Interlagos sprint result netted him two points, but for 2022 the sprint race is worth more to more finishers. Now, the winner will get eight and points are paid out down to eighth place. And this is a problem.

F1 wanted to have six sprint races in 2022 because it viewed the potential for a big revenue increase thanks to added sponsorship deals and broadcast reach, but this was scuppered by the teams needing to have an appropriate level of compensation for any accident damage picked up in the extra race events. A compromise was reached on increasing budgets around the three sprint rounds – to $150,000 more for each one – and another $100,000 allowed if a car retires, unchanged from 2021. The deal also meant planned sprints in Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands were dropped.

Giving points as a sporting reward when the success was being measured in an overall context is problematic. Especially as there was a sporting reward all along – the grid placings for the main race being up for grabs

This exposes the challenge of adding in extra races, even shorter ones, in the cost cap era. But it isn’t the main problem when considering the sporting impact of the altered format. And that is awarding points for the extra race.

The 2021 sprint weekends were billed as experiments, as F1 aimed to tweak its format to increase excitement (wheel-to-wheel racing trumps against the clock tests, so it goes) and have a meaningful session for fans attending the tracks each day. Such an approach meant awarding points was dubious – surely it would be fairer to award no points if the main aim was to see how an F1 weekend could be improved.

Experimenting with an alternative format is no bad thing in isolation – progress will be achieved one way or another. But giving points as a sporting reward when the success was being measured in an overall context is problematic. Especially as there was a sporting reward all along – the grid placings for the main race being up for grabs.

Teams voted down plans to increase the number of sprint races due to the increased risks of damage, such as the front wing failure that caused Gasly to crash at Monza

Photo by: Jerry Andre / Motorsport Images

At least for 2022, F1 and the FIA have sensibly ditched the awarding of the pole statistic going to the sprint winner and transferred it back to whoever tops Friday evening qualifying. And it’s good that the ‘qualifying’ moniker has gone from the Saturday event that was definitely a race… But having extra points for the three extra races remains contentious – and more so now they’re worth more.

Yes, there’s an argument drivers will race harder to gain ground, but the evidence from 2021 was that once the early exchanges had happened, most drivers opted to prioritise their current positions against the risk of a lowly GP start in an incident (see Lando Norris not fighting Hamilton hard over fifth late in the Interlagos sprint). The teams fear these in any case due to the potential added costs.

Sprint races are here to stay and that’s fine, but F1 has shown it is willing to listen to feedback on those early trials, so hopefully it will do so again in 2022. Perhaps it will also consider the impact of which tracks get considered for future sprints, with Imola, for example, an intriguing choice.

The race re-joined the calendar in 2020 – helping F1 get a full season in during the first year of the pandemic. It has earned a slot until 2025, with the Italian government and the local Emilia Romagna authorities contributing to its funding. The track’s old-school nature is popular with drivers and nostalgic fans, but its narrow layout means the high-risk of a procession.

The evidence so far from the 2022 rule changes is that following and therefore overtaking has been made easier. This raises hopes that if Red Bull can get back to Ferrari’s level and set up the multi-team scraps for victory F1 witnessed in Bahrain and Jeddah then another exciting event is on the cards for this weekend. But even if it ends being a low-action San Marino 2005/2006 nail-biter, then that is no bad thing. Those events are considered GP classics for different reasons.

But it means the burgeoning history of F1 sprint races now faces its toughest so far test – combining Imola’s overtaking challenge with the opening sprint race coming much earlier this time around.

That’s because if the extra points don’t result in the attacking incentive F1 hopes, which is unfortunately highly likely at this early stage of the season, then it will have to consider if timing becomes a deployment factor for such events. And this would make the awarding of points for minority weekends all the more contentious and edge sprint races towards the 2014 double-points finale.

Essentially, a gimmick too far, which would negate the positive aspects F1 has witnessed with its sprint race trials.

Will adding more points for sprint races really increase incentives to try potentially risky overtakes at such an early stage in the season?

Photo by: Alfa Romeo