Mercedes

Mercedes outlines impacts of F1 sprint qualifying

Teams will have a single practice session to perfect their cars ahead of qualifying

Ewan Gale

Wednesday 14 July 2021 13:50

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has outlined the impact of the new sprint qualifying weekend format on team preparations.

The British Grand Prix will mark the inaugural sprint qualifying event as the initiative is trialled at Silverstone for the first of three times this season ahead of potential introduction on a wider scale in 2022.

Qualifying has been shifted to Friday evening after a single practice session, with a second practice session taking place before a 100km sprint on Saturday. The main race will be run as usual on Sunday afternoon.

"The new schedule does have quite an impact on how we work at the track and how we work with the drivers," said Shovlin.

"It is a very different race weekend and we have really had to look at the whole thing afresh and consider how we consider the analysis work around it, consider the simulation work that we do leading up to it, the work on the cars and when we are actually going to get that fitted in and the key points of how do we make sure we have got that spec right in just that short space of time just with that single FP1 session before qualifying and make sure we have got as much performance on the car going into the race as possible."

Mercedes to involve drivers in decisions ahead of further trials

With two more trials to follow Silverstone, the findings from the first-ever sprint qualifying will allow teams to be more familiar with procedures when the next event is held.

"In reality, after the first sprint qualifying event in Silverstone, we will sit down and discuss how it has gone, what worked well, what didn't work," explained Shovlin.

"We can involve the drivers in those decisions so that with the subsequent events we can be as best prepared as possible."