F1 also decided it wanted to be greener... not sure how all the extra freight to/from/between the extra races manages that.
To be fair the sprint races so far have set up 'that' encounter at Silverstone and Mclaren's shock Monza domination. So the Sprints themselves have been crap but the aftermaths have been pretty good. But I suspect that with a larger sample size the random events will get tuned out and Sprint Races will go away after next year.
Also, if you want to be charitable/optimistic... the sprint format might suit the new cars better than the current ones. Might.
Sprint racing is up there with elimination qualfying. The biggest issue with sprint is no reward no risk, never mind F1 still being a manufacturer formula meaning the longer the cars are on track the reversion to norm will occur. Why not after a third distance award points? Heck red flag the race and have a restart while they're at it. Its the same thing with less days involved.
Sprint races are so they can milk the entire weekend by having f1 'action' on each day... we know it, they know it...
Nope, I really like the whole sprint qualy thing. Just wish it was half race distance rather than around 1/3, and offered a bit more reward (a few more points)
I agree on the points. They should offer point to the top 10, even it goes 5,4,3,2,1,1,1,1,1,1 at least the top 10 get something for doing well. As is it's just extra engine miles and risk for a grid slot they already qualified for.
A spring race, with points and position, works well in WSBK. Hell, next thing on the cards for F1 will be a BTCC reverse grid
Yea that one puzzled me a bit. Raikkonens rant about the water bottle and the team not being able to manage simple things got a very uneasy chuckle
Mick reminding everyone that he is the spawn of The Rain Baron, 2.9 seconds faster than Mazepin. No doubt Nikita will start moaning about the lead weights somebody left in his chassis or something, that's one skill he's got down to an art. He did clarify later that the steering rack was set up wrong and he wasn't getting enough steering lock, I just thought the way he said it on the radio was too funny not to draw attention to.
Mazepin did have laps deleted as did Raikkonen who was still nearly a second down the road. Doubt they would have made too much of a difference. Schumacher was right place at right time to get that lap down but still doesn't take away that he dragged that pig of a Haas round faster than Riccardo. Truely awesome! His radio message was brilliant I just saw no explaination for what the actual problem is which is why it left me puzzled.
Shame he didn't quite make it past Lewis. Bit of a tame race after the start. Max was just miles ahead.
Wonder if they argued that Verstappen touching it was the cause This is purely on Merc for screwing this one up. Not a mistake an F1 team should be making never mind a consecutive title winning team
I think the stewards gave verstappen the slap on the wrist with a very detailed report on how he definitely didn't move the wing as they have high definition footage of it from several angles, just so they could quash any complaint that verstappen might have done it. I think they mentioned in the sky coverage that toto/Merc had said they didn't believe verstappen could have caused it. It's one of those things where if they did it would reflect very badly on them from the ridiculousness of it. Not harmed Lewis too much though.