POLE POSITION: Relentless grind could drive Verstappen away from F1
POLE POSITION: More sprint races in Formula One would thrill us… but the relentless grind may drive double world champion Max Verstappen away from the sport
- Sprint race weekends will only see one practice session to be held on Fridays
- Friday will also see the normal qualifying session for Sunday’s race in Baku
- Saturday will see a mini qualifying for the sprint race to be held the same day
One thing to celebrate here by the Caspian Sea is that there’s just one hour of practice and nothing more at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
It’s exactly right, and hats off to Formula One chief executive Stefano Domenicali for shaping the new format in the face of initial opposition.
Some of us were keen on the sprint races from the start, on the basis that they didn’t do away with qualifying but that they did away with practice.
The fact is: qualifying is more fun than practice on a Friday afternoon; a sprint is more fun than qualifying on a Saturday afternoon. You still get the former and get the latter added on. Fridays suddenly have something riding on them.
When sprints were first introduced a couple of years ago, there was plenty of moaning about it. Engineers were aghast. Drivers were reluctant. But what Domenicali realised is that the sport should run for the fans and not just the teams.
This weekend will see the introduction of the new sprint race format in which there will only be one practice session across the three days of action at the Baku street circuit
The drivers are supportive if slightly conflicted about sprints, with the exception of double world champion Max Verstappen (pictured) who is an outright opponent of the idea
Qualifying for Sunday’s race will take place on Friday, while Saturday will see a mini qualifying session which will set the grid for the sprint race which will take place on the same day
If you asked the teams, they would stick with practice interminably, gathering data and boring the pants off everyone else.
The drivers are now supportive if slightly conflicted about sprints, with the exception of Max Verstappen, who is an outright opponent of the idea. ‘Harder for us,’ said Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz in Baku. ‘But if it works for the spectators, it is good.’
‘Straight into action, though more demanding mentally and physically,’ averred Valtteri Bottas of Alfa Romeo. ‘But overall it is positive.’ Lewis Hamilton thought it was good that the first sprint of the year is at Baku’s street circuit because this place serves up overtaking chances.
Alex Albon, of Williams, declared that the new way of staging a sprint weekend, making its debut here, is better than the old system, whereby qualifying set the grid for the sprint and the results from that determined the starting order for the grand prix.
Now qualifying on Friday sets the grand prix grid. Saturday is a self-contained schedule: sprint qualifying and then the sprint. Points will awarded for the top eight, as before, but the sprint has no role in determining the grand prix grid.
I suspect Domenicali will add more sprints next year beyond the six already on the programme this season. He is nudging his way there, perhaps hoping to hold sprints every race weekend or thereabouts. For clarity: the format of practice-qualifying-grand prix remains in place as usual at non-sprint weekends, confusingly.
What Domenicali should guard against is an extension to the season. Twenty-three race weekends is more than enough for the travelling circus. Staff will be lost to the sport. Marriages will go west. Sanity will be tested. The sport is close to breaking point.
Even Verstappen has spoken of leaving the merry-go-round long before he is aged 38 like Hamilton. That is not only because of the sprints, which he says run counter to the sport’s DNA, but also the remorseless demands of the circuit.
One issue that needs resolving is the number of races each season, as the growing calendar could lead to the likes of Verstappen leaving the sport at a young age due to the demands
The double world champion is just 25 and has said he is on his final contract that takes him beyond his 30th birthday. He is looking to a future in which he can race where and when he wants, for his own enjoyment, not hammer himself out with the five races in six weekends that lie ahead now.
There is a danger spelt out to Domenicali in this stated intention, touched upon again here by Verstappen. Sticking around to win a seventh or eighth title is not his bag.
Domemicali will probably add one more round to the roster next year, which isn’t needed, other than for generating hosting fees for the sport’s owners at Liberty Media in America.
Critics accused Bernie Ecclestone of avarice when he was in charge, but going to 24 races is not something he remotely got near to. In my view 18 a year is best for the rhythm of the championship. It also preserves a ‘grand prix’ as something special. But it’s too late to go back to those kind of shorter seasons of old. It is not what a new Netflix audience would appreciate. The sprints probably are.
Massa did not deserve the 2008 championship
Felipe Massa is considering legal action to claim the 2008 world title on the basis that Fernando Alonso’s Renault team subverted the Singapore Grand Prix that year and, as the theory runs, cost him what may have turned out to be a crucial victory.
Nobody among the global TV audience can but feel sympathy towards the Brazilian after watching his family celebrate in the Ferrari garage before Lewis Hamilton completed his final lap, passing Timo Glock’s Toyota that was suddenly no longer the car in front, and came in as the champion by one point.
The face of the defeated man’s father crashing to the floor as the sudden shock of losing set in was enough to break hearts
The subject of Crashgate – Nelson Piquet Jnr pranging deliberately to help Alonso win after the introduction of a safety car on the streets of the city state – comes back to the fore because Bernie Ecclestone recently suggested the ill-deed was known about while the title fight was still alive.
But two reasons why Massa should let sleeping dogs lie. The first is that however distorted Alonso’s win under floodlights was and how it cost Massa possible victory, there is no guarantee how the season would have panned out if he had been handed the win. The dynamic of the championship would have changed at that moment, and can’t be rewritten now.
Felipe Massa is considering legal action to claim the 2008 world title from Lewis Hamilton
It comes after Bernie Ecclestone suggested ‘crash-gate’ at that year’s Singapore GP – which arguably cost Massa the victory of that race – was known about at the time
The second is that Massa did not, in cruel reality, deserve the championship. He was in a Ferrari superior to Hamilton’s McLaren and did not make it tell, though he had some dazzling moments. Moreover, he effectively disqualified himself as a worthy champion by his inferior performances in the wet.
If he was less than impressive at Monaco on a slippery surface, he was embarrassingly bad at Silverstone, spinning five times while Hamilton unfurled one of the greatest drives in history, making himself seem amphibian. Massa finished 13th, twice lapped.
That in the end was as important as, and far more telling than, the misdemeanours of Singapore. It is the kind of disparity that separates the great drivers from the merely very, very good.
European GP title was always a stretch
You know how hotel clocks sometimes tell what time it is in New York, London, or say Paris, occasionally Berlin. Well, not at my digs in Azerbaijan.
It is instead Tehran, Moscow, Ankara and Dubai. And to think they originally called this the European Grand Prix. It was always a stretch.
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