1996 title winner reckons Saturday sprint and Sunday GP could led people to ask "which one is the real race?"; Sky F1 understands a sprint race would set grid for main event
Wednesday 8 July 2015 08:08, UK
Former world champion and Sky F1 pundit Damon Hill has questioned whether the sport would be heading down the right path if it took the radical step of adding a ‘sprint’ race to the grand prix weekend format.
As part of a host of proposals discussed by the Strategy Group to spice up the sport, the prospect of overhauling the race weekend format for 2016 was trailed, although team bosses involved in the meeting remained tight-lipped during the British GP over what ideas had actually been proposed.
It quickly emerged, however, that the creation of a shorter Saturday sprint race lies at the heart of the race weekend proposals.
Sky Sports F1 understands that the main idea on the table involves a race on Saturday afternoon which sets the grid order for Sunday’s main grand prix.
“I believe what’s been put forward is qualifying on Saturday morning, which is good because that would energise Friday too, and then a race to set the final grid,” Martin Brundle explained.
“So qualifying on Saturday morning, that sets the sprint race grid which then sets the race grid proper. The big teams don’t like it; they’re trying to change that. They want to have a race for their third drivers and their third cars on a Saturday afternoon. I don’t think that’s what the fans want.”
While the GP2 Series and Macau F3 formats each contain two races, and the German touring car championship (DTM) reintroduced two races per round this year, F1 has hitherto followed tradition and held just one main race at each grand prix.
F1’s weekend schedule has essentially remained unchanged for nearly a decade since the current three-part knockout qualifying session was introduced in 2006 to replace the little-loved single-lap format to set the grid.
But 1996 world champion Hill fears F1 would potentially be diluting the main attraction of the weekend if a sprint race was added to Saturday.
“I’m already confused. We’ve got a sprint race already – that’s what an F1 race is. It’s not an endurance race,” he pointed out.
“So I don’t get it. We’re in danger here of more muddling and fiddling around. You have to say the current qualifying format is an improvement over the last qualifying format. So that worked.
“GP2 runs sprint races, it sort of works. But I don’t know – which one is the real race? That’s my question.”
Hill would prefer a return to the pre-1996 race weekend format when qualifying sessions were held on both Friday and Saturday.
“I think perhaps they should have it on the Friday as well. It used to be that Friday would possibly be the grid," the 22-time race winner added.
"People had to pay attention and be on their game on Friday and properly competing,”
Don’t miss the F1 Midweek Report for all the analysis of the British GP. Former FIA president Max Mosley and F1 correspondent for The Times Kevin Eason join Natalie Pinkham in the studio. Catch it at 8:30pm on Wednesday July 8 on Sky Sports F1.
