Was F1's new Sprint weekend format a success? Sergio Perez reignites his 2023 title bid with double victory in Baku; George Russell tests Max Verstappen's limits and patience; Charles Leclerc gives Ferrari respite but FIA under fire once again
Monday 1 May 2023 11:04, UK
While Sunday's race at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix may have not been Formula 1's most memorable, an action-packed first Sprint weekend of the season provided many talking points.
After lots of discussion, fuelled by a four-week break after the Australian Grand Prix, F1's new Sprint weekend format made its long-awaited debut in Baku.
The first thing that became apparent was the tough challenge drivers were facing, only heightened by the punishing Baku City Circuit, to find the right car setup in one 60-minute practice session, as opposed to the three they would get at a standard F1 weekend.
Yuki Tsunoda and Carlos Sainz both made significant contact with the barriers, while even a driver as experienced as Lewis Hamilton failed to nail the setup on his Mercedes and was consequently left on the back foot for the remainder of the weekend.
As it had done in the previous format that F1 had used since Sprint races were introduced in 2021, Friday's Qualifying session provided an injection of entertainment and jeopardy into the opening day, which was only boosted by Charles Leclerc producing a stunning lap to knock Red Bull off pole for the first time this season.
While the paddock was focused on Ferrari's sudden and unexpected resurgence, it somewhat slipped under the radar that McLaren's Lando Norris and AlphaTauri's Tsunoda had made a slight mockery of the new rules.
The weekend's second qualifying session, Saturday's Sprint Shootout, required drivers to use new sets of tyres in each of its three segments - mediums in SQ1 and SQ2, and softs in the final part.
Despite attempts from the FIA to prevent them from doing so before the action got under way, Norris and Tsunoda decided to blood all six of their new sets of soft tyres on Friday, meaning that neither would be able to complete in the third part of Saturday's Sprint Shootout if they made it that far, which Norris did.
It wasn't a great look for the new format having a car choosing not to compete in the 'Shootout', but there was still plenty of drama.
Any doubts over whether drivers would be fully committed to a qualifying session that only set the grid for the Sprint - where significantly fewer points are available than on Sunday - were quickly dispelled.
Logan Sargeant crashed out in SQ1, while the session's shortened segments ensured intense finishes to each part, with the plentiful life in the medium and improving track ensuring times continued to improve through SQ1 and SQ2.
The merit of limiting teams to just one set of soft tyres in SQ3 is likely to come under question as drivers generally struggled to improve on their first efforts, with Leclerc, despite securing another pole with his first flying lap, providing the most compelling evidence of this issue as he lost control and went into the barrier on his second attempt at a quick lap.
Yes, there were imperfections, but there was also lots of entertainment. As Red Bull team principal Christian Horner pointed out on Sunday evening, one of the reasons for getting the new format in place for this weekend was to be able to tweak it before the second of this season's six Sprints in Austria at the end of June, and that should lead to an improved product for the remainder of the campaign.
One of the key reasons for adding a second qualifying session was ensuring that the Sprint would no longer set the grid for Sunday's race, theoretically encouraging drivers to take more risks in the 100km contest.
Many expressed scepticism over whether this would work, given the perils of doing significant damage to cars with teams operating under a budget cap, where the cost of repairs could eat into development funds.
However, the early signs were positive, with Mercedes' George Russell and Max Verstappen engaging in a fantastic early scrap.
The contest, which played out through the first three corners was intense and high-risk, as Verstappen found out.
With Russell occupying the inside line, Verstappen opted not to yield, and paid the price as the Mercedes drifted into the side of his RB19 in Turn Two, leaving a visible hole in its bodywork.
Russell would then pull clear as Verstappen made contact with the barrier on the way out of Turn Three, leaving the Dutchman to fume over team radio, repeatedly expressing his shock that Russell had not been punished.
While Verstappen was able to regain the place shortly after, the damage appeared to hamper him and he was unable to chase down Leclerc, who held on for second behind Perez.
Having failed to calm down during the remainder of the 17-lap contest, Verstappen confronted his rival in front of the cameras, and was heard insulting Russell as the Brit nonchalantly walked away from the exchange.
More words were exchanged via the media, with Russell dismissing Verstappen's criticism, insisting he would expect the same approach from the Dutchman if roles were reversed.
While Verstappen was understandably left aggrieved by the damage done to his car, there is a significant amount of evidence from previous seasons that left him looking slightly hypocritical.
Verstappen's woes would continue on Sunday as he was beaten to victory by his team-mate Perez, whose calm demeanour after winning Saturday's Sprint was perhaps evidence that he felt the job was far from done.
A questionable Red Bull strategy call aided Perez as Verstappen pitted with Nyck de Vries' AlphaTauri stranded on track, just before the Safety Car was sent out.
Perez's stop a lap later with the field's pace reduced meant he emerged into a lead that he never relinquished.
While there was a stroke of luck involved, Perez had appeared to be the quicker of the Red Bulls as he closed on Verstappen before the pit stops, and that was backed up by the way he was able to establish and hold a lead afterwards.
Perez's double reduced Verstappen's world championship lead to six points, and the Mexican wasted no time in letting the world - and his team-mate - know that he believes he is coming for F1's crown.
His exclamations over team radio after the chequered flag and comments to the media afterwards were buoyant, with a poor performance in Australia that had calmed talk of an intra-Red Bull title battle put firmly behind him.
Perez has made it clear he is a match for Verstappen at street circuits, where six of his seven F1 victories have come, but he must now show that he can take the fight to his team-mate at other tracks.
Ferrari arrived in Baku on the back foot, with reports in Italy suggesting their star driver Leclerc has been engaged in talks with Mercedes following his team's poor start to the season.
The situation was hardly helped by Leclerc saying that he had "not yet" held any talks with his team's rival, despite insisting that he is "fully committed" to Ferrari.
Thankfully for Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur, who continued to be visibly troubled by back issues, Leclerc shifted the narrative with his brilliant qualifying performances.
While Ferrari were unsurprisingly unable to compete with Red Bull over race distance, Leclerc's second in the Sprint and third in the Grand Prix were a welcome tonic after two retirements for the Monegasque in the first three races.
While Leclerc's one-lap brilliance gave him a jump on Mercedes and Aston Martin, the trio of teams chasing Red Bull were once more pretty evenly matched in terms of race pace.
Both Ferrari and Mercedes have slated the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, which comes two weeks after the Miami Grand Prix, as the landing spot for significant and much-discussed upgrades.
Hamilton admitted after finishing sixth in the race that he is "counting the days" until his car's new parts arrive, and those hoping to see serious Sunday contests - involving anything other than an RB19 - are likely to share that sentiment.
While Mercedes and Ferrari have been open about their Imola upgrades, there's less noise coming from Aston Martin, who are the team that should theoretically be able to develop at the fastest rate, with more wind-tunnel time than their rivals having finished seventh in last year's constructors' standings.
All in all, it was a pretty strange weekend for Max Verstappen.
He used his time with the media on Thursday to continue to criticise the new Sprint format, apparently perturbed that his warnings - and (perhaps playful) threat to quit the sport - had been ignored.
Along with expressing doubts over Sprint weekends, Verstappen reiterated his uncertainty over remaining in the sport beyond the end of his current contract in 2028.
While many might not feel sympathy for an F1 world champion complaining about his quality of life, Verstappen's comments on his feelings were admirably honest and a window into the challenges of sustaining a long career at the top of elite sport.
After being outqualified by Leclerc on Friday and Saturday, Verstappen's patience finally appeared to run out with the Russell incident, and he did himself no favours with the aggressive nature of his post-race actions and comments towards the Brit.
His conclusion that F1 should completely "scrap" the Sprint in the post-race press conference was seen by many as petulant, and is surely not the right way to go about discussing the sport's attempts to continue its remarkable growth in popularity around the world.
Sunday's full-length contest didn't bring Verstappen relief either, but he was notably calm after his team's strategy call saw him lose the lead to Perez.
Whether it was an acceptance that Perez was the faster driver on the day, or running out of energy after a long and challenging weekend, Verstappen opted not to pick a fight.
There is a little doubt the fiercely-competitive Dutchman will show up in Miami wanting to prove a point and send a message to his team-mate - beware of a wounded animal.
For the third time in as many races, the FIA found itself under fire at the chequered flag.
In Saudi Arabia it was confusion over the application of a penalty on Alonso, in Australia it was red-flag chaos, and this time it was a narrowly avoided pit-lane disaster.
In a rare occurrence, Alpine's Esteban Ocon had opted not to fulfil his mandatory change of tyres until the start of the final lap.
Sky Sports F1's pit lane reporter Ted Kravitz was all over the situation and warned of the danger as photographers gathered at the pit lane entrance preparing to welcome the top three, who were about to finish the race.
Unfortunately, nobody at the FIA appeared to be paying attention, and photographers were occupying the main part of the pit lane as Ocon made his way in.
Thankfully, the snappers heard or saw the Alpine coming and just about got out of the way as he veered right to avoid them.
It was an extremely near miss in a situation that was totally avoidable, and FIA representatives were called to the stewards after the race to explain what had happened.
While it's a situation that can - and surely will - be easily rectified, the incident will do little to boost waning confidence in those officiating the sport.
After all that, we only have a few days to wait until the cars hit the track again in Miami - bring it on!
The Formula 1 season continues with the Miami GP from May 5-7. Watch qualifying at 9pm on Saturday with lights out at 8.30pm on Sunday. Get Sky Sports
