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The 2023 Azerbaijan F1 GP was the first trial of the new sprint weekend format. While some drivers welcomed the change, there were others who voiced their express disapproval, especially reigning double world champion Max Verstappen.
The Red Bull driver, a pure racer who has grown up watching F1 being something completely different in DNA, has shared his express disapproval. On Saturday, when asked about his views about the format, Verstappen said that it's boring and that the format should be scrapped.
Well, the sprint format is here to stay for a while, though, as F1 is looking to find ways to build more action into the sport. Having said that, what seems clear after the first sprint weekend is that the format is destined to be a long-term failure.
Here are five reasons:
#1 It does not address main issue with F1
When an F1 fan is questioned on what is one thing they want from the sport, a sprint format is certainly not top of the list. What the sport is missing right now is what it stumbled on to in 2021 - a legitimate title battle between two of the best teams with the two best drivers on the grid.
Any fan will wholeheartedly accept that a season like the one in 2021 or the one in 2012 had everyone on tenterhooks till the last lap of the season. More or less, it was what the new regulations promised but have unfortunately not delivered.
In the short term, a sprint weekend might keep fans engaged because of its novelty, but if nine out of ten races are won by the same team, it won't engage the fans.
#2 Sprint races are uneventful
We've had seven sprint races till now, but only two of them (Imola 2022 and Sau Paulo 2022) saw an intense battle for the win.
More importantly, these races have hardly been memorable. Arguably, except for the 2021 Brazilian GP sprint that featured Lewis Hamilton coming through the field, there's hardly any sprint that can be termed memorable. In fact, none of them have been.
For the kind of hype surrounding the sprint, the action has been underwhelming at best and does not add much value to the overall entertainment quotient.
#3 The Grand Prix risks losing its prestige
The conventional F1 format might be a bit of a slow burn on a Friday but it evolves to a crescendo on a Sunday.
We have free practice on Friday. Things ramp up on Saturday with the qualifying session that sets the grid for the race. The build-up reaches its peak on a Sunday when drivers and teams fight it out for the 'Grand Prize'.
The new format has completely killed the flow, and instead of a build-up to the grand finale, there are spurts of action all over the weekend. The sprint Saturday, which is almost a standalone event, kills the flow completely. Most importantly, with more than a 24-hour gap between the Grand Prix and its qualifying, it's tough for even fans to keep track of the starting grid.
Overall, with too many moving parts, a new fan will find it tough to keep track of what's going on over a weekend, let alone the prestige of the Grand Prix on Sunday.
#4 Demanding major change in consumer commitment
F1 as a sport will change drastically if a sprint weekend becomes a regularity. More often than not, a sport like Formula 1 has always been a low-commitment sport. Fans tune off for days and then come back on race weekend. The most important bits of action are on the weekend with qualifying on Saturday and the race on Sunday.
The new sprint format makes it far too demanding for fans. Not only do they have to follow qualifying on a Friday (which is tough, as it's a work day for some), but they also need to keep two different slots available on a Saturday for the sprint qualifying and race.
A hardcore fan might continue to follow every session, but a casual fan is not going to commit that much to F1. There needs to be a level of caution in understanding how consumer behavior could change drastically if so much commitment is being asked of them.
#5 More does not always mean better
Finally, while this might be contrary to the opinion F1 chief Stefano Domenicali holds, more is not always better.
More races and more qualifying sessions crammed over a weekend are not going to solve the underlined discontent of fans. That's because, in essence, it's twice the same thing we're watching over the same weekend.
This is something even MotoGP has been tackling as well, as the sport has introduced its own sprint weekend format. What ails MotoGP right now is that the action by Saturday is already so much that by the time the main race on Sunday comes, customer fatigue sets in.
Watching the same thing in the same conditions twice over is not a recipe for success, especially if the overall result is going to be more or less the same.
