Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc hit out at F1 schedule

Formula One title rivals Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc have united with their criticism of the schedule for this weekend's Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

The first European race of the season also sees 2022's first Sprint Qualifying session, the first of three venues this season to utilise the format.

Introduced last season, the Sprint was brought into the sport to provide more competitiveness over the entirety of the race weekend – with all three days seeing the drivers go head-to-head on the track.

For this weekend's Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, that means just one-hour of practice on an incredibly wet track before Friday afternoon's qualifying session – which decides where cars will sit on the grid for Saturday's Sprint.

The results of Saturday's Sprint then decide the grid for the Grand Prix on Sunday, meaning a single incident can ruin an entire weekend.

Both Verstappen and Leclerc have made it clear they're not a fan of the format, which sees driver's at the track on Thursday for media activities, with the former stating the changes are not welcome.

“Personally I'm not a fan of the sprint but it is what it is… some like it some don't. I think it's more how we are doing the press conference and the media activities, I think it was better before."

“Coming in early is not a problem but your whole day is longer, going to more races you would like to have a shorter weekend. But actually now with more races we are now having longer weekends, more days we are at the track doing stuff so that definitely needs to change.”

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Leclerc, who holds a significant lead over defending champion Verstappen in the Championship, agreed and added:

“On the format, I quite like the Friday to be honest just because a normal Friday is normally pretty boring we have FP1, FP2, FP3, lots of practice. Now it's straight to the point so I quite like this.

"Then for the Saturday, I believe we could maybe do something better, either having a standout race which doesn’t affect Sunday’s race to have a bit more action on the Saturday and people taking more risks.”

Carlos Sainz and Sebastian Vettel also gave their backing to changes, with the former world champion saying F1 needs to find a 'better way' to organise the weekend.

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