Andreas Seidl echoes Lewis Hamilton sprint race concerns

Seidl at the Bahrain GP — Photo: © LAT Images

British Grand Prix

Seidl echoes Hamilton sprint race concerns

F1 will trial its first sprint race at Silverstone

Sam Hall

Monday 12 July 2021 09:29

McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl believes drivers will race with added caution in the F1 sprint qualifying event in order to minimise the risk of losing gird positions.

F1 will complete its first of three trials of a revised weekend format with sprint qualifying replacing the current session on Saturday afternoon at the British Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton has already expressed his fear the 100km race will be a procession and Seidl confirmed he will be instructing drivers Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo to take things steady.

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“I think in general, also at the first couple of laps in the race, I don’t think that you, at least with our guys, we never go for unreasonable risk," he said.

"You want to stay in the race and even more so on Saturday. You want to make sure that you are in a decent position on Sunday to start the race.

“It is a long race and there is still a lot you can do on Sunday. I’m not sure if it actually changes so much.”

Lack of practice "the biggest challenge"

The altered format will see teams complete just a single one-hour practice session on Friday before the cars enter parc fermé conditions with the regular three-part qualifying session taking place that evening.

With minimal time in which to complete all the regular data gathering activities and confirm a set-up, there will be no time to waste.

Seidl explained: “Obviously, the team is putting quite a lot of effort in in order to be ready for this first weekend with the sprint race.

"I guess the biggest challenge for all of us will be the operational side of things because it is quite a change having the car in parc fermé already from Friday lunchtime onwards when we go into this qualifying.

“A big challenge is as well to obviously have only one free practice session of one hour before the car is pretty much frozen in parc fermé so I guess more than ever the emphasis is being as prepared as possible, making sure you have a clean 60-minute session where you try not to go too fancy because you simply have no time to do big testing and so on.

“I think it is just important to get all you need in terms of making sure you get the temperatures right, you get things like brake-wear right, brake temperatures, power unit temperatures which is a challenge.

“The obviously now you have to do that by Friday lunchtime and not on a Saturday lunchtime which means you are one day further away when it counts on Sunday in terms of temperatures also, so the predictions in terms of weather forecast and so on, you are further out.

“So there are lots of these small, little challenges but it is the same for all so we are really looking forward to that challenge.”