2023-04-25 16:17:24
The Azerbaijan Grand Prix, which this weekend will host the first of the six sprint races of the season, will test a new format for this exercise introduced in 2021. Meeting this Tuesday in Geneva, the members of the Formula 1 Commission of the FIA have in fact voted unanimously for the project unveiled a few weeks ago, ratified in the wake of an electronic vote by the World Council.
Until then, the Friday qualifying session decided the starting grid for the Saturday sprint race, the classification of which determined the starting grid for the Grand Prix. From now on, this Friday qualifying, which is still preceded by a free practice session, will be used to establish the starting order for the Sunday Grand Prix, while Saturday will only be devoted to the sprint race, with a qualifying session specific to this exercise, called a “sprint shootout” and organized just before this sprint race.
This “sprint shootout” will take place in the same way as a qualification, but according to a reduced timing with a Q1 of twelve minutes for all the pilots, then a Q2 of ten minutes bringing together the fifteen best and finally an eight-minute Q3 for the ten fastest drivers.
The point scale remains the same
The idea is to encourage the pilots to engage without restraint during the sprint race, since a possible error during this exercise will not influence their starting position on Sunday. This new format also makes it possible to do away with the traditional free practice session on Saturday morning, which is not very exciting for the general public and has now been replaced by this high-stakes “sprint shootout”.
The allocation of points remains unchanged for the sprint race: the top 8 will score according to the scale 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. The GPs of Austria, Belgium, Qatar, the United States (Austin) and São Paulo will use this format for the other sprint races of the season.
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