Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz call on F1 to spice up dull sprint qualifying

Lewis Hamilton makes a bad start in sprint race at Monza — Photo: © LAT Images

Ferrari

Ferrari duo Leclerc and Sainz call on F1 to spice up dull sprint qualifying

Friday gets a thumbs up, but thumbs down for Saturday

Ian Parkes

Thursday 16 September 2021 15:49

Ferrari duo Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz are hoping F1 can find an answer to the lack of excitement with the sprint qualifying format.

The second trial of the event at Monza lacked the novelty factor of the first at Silverstone and following the usual opening-lap thrills, there was little to commend it for the remaining 17 laps that followed.

While the drivers enjoy normal qualifying on Friday as it offers up action across three days of a race weekend, the feeling is the sprint qualifying - that faces a final trial in Brazil - needs to be reworked to avoid the procession seen in Italy.

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"I quite like this format for the Friday," said Leclerc. "I think for Friday it's definitely something positive.

"I am a bit bored on a normal Friday. FP1, FP2, nothing to win, nothing to lose, okay, doing a few more laps is always good but you've so many other chances to recover what you've lost in FP1.

"Now FP1 is an actual session where it really is worth pushing, finding the limit, and I think it's also good for us drivers to just go on the track and push straight away. It's also more interesting for the show.

"So, personally, I quite like the Friday format like this.

"Then for the sprint qualifying, it was very disappointing. It was good at Silverstone, I didn't enjoy it as much in Monza, so I feel there is room to try something different for the sprint qualifying.

"There have been quite a lot of ideas and we are more or less on the same line to try and do something for the sprint qualifying."

Sprint needs excitement - Sainz

Sainz was in full agreement with his Scuderia team-mate, hailing the Friday fervour but then was then left feeling flat with a lack of a Saturday show.

"Friday has clearly improved for everyone," said Sainz. "It's progress. FP1 is exciting because you know you don't have that long and you need to learn.

"Also, for the teams, with the number of simulation tools there are nowadays, it forces the teams to be modern, to be up to date, to be on the simulations to try and put together a good car on Friday.

"And then Saturday, I agree with Charles that we need to find a way to make Saturday a bit more exciting because at the moment I don't think it's providing much excitement compared to a Saturday qualifying.

"I don't see the sprint qualifying being more exciting than a Saturday qualifying so we need to find a way to make sprint qualifying more exciting for everyone."