Bojan Vrbnjak
After some time of discussions, it is Formula 1 Commission adopted the sprint race format unanimously. Head of Formula 1 Stefano domenicali and sports boss Ross Brawn they want to take care of three times this year with a different course of the racing weekend refreshment and diversification events.
This experiment will be conducted this season in Silverstone, Monza in Interlagos. Points in the sprint race they will only win the first three namely by key 3-2-1 from first to third place. Of course, it’s interesting to know how it will be racing weekend with sprint the race took place.
The course of the GP weekend with a sprint race
On Friday morning, there will be one free training session lasting 60 minutes, where the racers will have only two sets of tires available. In the afternoon, they will perform the qualifications as we know them so far. In terms of tires, however, racers will have five sets of soft compound.
On Saturday, it is time for free training (60 minutes) in the morning, but this time with only one set of tires per racer of your choice. The afternoon will be followed by a sprint race (or Mini GP, as some call it), which will be officially called “Sprint Qualifying” and will last a maximum of 100 kilometers, ie a third of a normal race. Teams will have two sets of tires of their choice available for these sprint qualifiers.
The result of these sprint qualifiers or sprint races will give the starting order of Sunday's race, which remains the main event of the Grand Prix. In this Sunday's race, the teams will use the last two remaining sets of tires. Here it will be interesting to see how teams in terms of strategy will choose tire mixes where they are free to do so.
In terms of tires on these new formats of race weekends with a sprint race, the FIA has also defined that if the weekend starts with a wet track, teams will have three sets of heavy rain tires and four sets of intermediate tires available for each racer.
Of course, there is another sensitive area and these are the conditions or rules of Parc Ferme, when you can only work on the car under the supervision of the ombudsmen. These are valid from the qualifiers on Friday. It is not allowed to change larger parts in order to prevent the “production” of special qualifying cars and to reduce the preparation time for the qualifying race itself.
The first man of Formula 1 Stefano domenicali he said: "We are very excited to get the opportunity to introduce fans to the fresh racing weekend format. We are confident that we will experience a great sport."
