FIA praised for deliverance of "labour-intensive" sprint

Sprint Qualifying

FIA praised for deliverance of "labour-intensive" sprint

Silverstone played host for the inaugural sprint weekend

Ian Parkes & Ewan Gale

Friday 23 July 2021 13:43

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FIA race director Michael Masi has hailed the work completed by F1's governing body in enabling a smooth running of the first-ever sprint qualifying weekend.

The British Grand Prix saw a different schedule for an F1 weekend, with qualifying moved to Friday to make way for the 100km sprint qualifying event, which set pole for Sunday's grand prix.

After months of planning, Saturday's trial seemed to be a success and Masi revealed: "It was obviously labour intensive and our team obviously did an amazing job because there was effectively three lots of parc fermé that needed to be considered as opposed to the normal one.

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"Yes, it was extensive but the guys and girls in the FIA team did an awesome job getting through it."

"I think it was good, it was something different and that was the part that speaking to friends around the globe - the part they said they liked was it was different.

"Obviously, we have seen changes to qualifying and so forth but really the structure of a grand prix weekend has been relatively stable for a large number of years. It was quite intense, by the time you get through those sort of first few laps and heard the call over the radio of 10 laps to go you are like where has that gone? You have to remind yourself!

"I thought it was good and to see the excitement, particularly the likes of Kimi [Raikkonen] and Fernando [Alonso], I think it added to the spectacle and from what I understand, it came across well from a spectators perspective to see that. It was something different.

"Do I see it having a place at every event? No. Is it a different format... and I think F1 has been quite open in saying it is looking and different opportunities for different events in the future, absolutely."

Learnings from sprint to be considered

One of the big takeaways from the sprint weekend was the ability for all drivers on the grid to start the race on fresh tyres, lending to a more attacking opening stanza to the event.

On whether the rules could change for standard events, Masi replied: "Any learnings that we take from a Sprint qualifying format as it currently is, we would look at it.

"Is it something that would be done for this year? No. Is it something we would look at in the future, collectively with everyone for the benefit of the sport? Absolutely."