F1 champion Jacques Villeneuve delivers incredible verdict on new Monaco sprint race

Jacques Villeneuve has, perhaps surprisingly, defended F1's decision to hold a sprint race at next year's Monaco Grand Prix.

Racing at the historic street circuit is infamously dull to watch, with next to no overtaking opportunities around the tight streets of the principality, leading to a number of fans questioning the decision to plant an extra race on the Saturday morning of the race weekend.

Pit strategy has become the only viable way of making an overtake in race conditions, but the 100km sprints and sturdy modern tyres mean that there's no chance of anyone being forced to dive into the pits for fresh rubber either.

The most commonly cited justification for the move is that Saturday qualifying is the highlight of a Monaco Grand Prix weekend – and a sprint race will give fans an extra qualifying session on Friday afternoon.

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Villeneuve: There weren't enough sprints

Villeneuve is always good for a contrarian take though, and said on Sky Sports on Thursday in Baku that a Monaco sprint 'might force drivers to be a bit more aggressive' when normally they wouldn't be.

“There weren't enough [sprint races]," he said, "and Monaco is not a bad one. It might force the drivers to be a bit more aggressive on a track that normally they cannot be.

“So instead of more practice, instead of getting the perfect setup, yeah, that's quite a cool track to have it at.”

The idea of drivers getting more aggressive in search of overtakes on a Saturday sprint is an interesting one, albeit one which seems fundamentally flawed on two counts.

The first of those is that extra aggression rarely seems to make a difference with modern cars at Monaco, and the second is that any driver who gets aggressive and dings up his car in search of a single extra point just a couple of hours before the most crucial session of the weekend, Saturday's grand prix qualifying, will get slapped around the head so hard by their team that it sounds like someone's phone taking a screenshot.

We'll see how that works out next summer.

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