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This year saw a record-breaking 22-race F1 season, with the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council further approving a 23-race season for 2022. Four-time world champion Alain Prost is rather skeptical about the new calendar and the strain this is likely to put on drivers and teams overall. During his racing days, the average F1 season would have featured a maximum of 17 races in a year. It comes as no surprise that Prost is not very comfortable with the idea of a whopping 23 race weekends squeezed into nine months.
Speaking to The SportsRush, the Frenchman said:
“Twenty-three races is a lot. Very difficult for the teams, very difficult for the people traveling, some of the mechanics, engineers, team principals that [are] running all the races, some not always in a good condition if you can imagine that, and it’s got to be very, very difficult.”
The provisional calendar features races across several countries and a maiden race at the Miami International Autodrome. While China will not be on the calendar for next year, F1 will be back once again on four iconic circuits. Australia, Canada, Singapore and Japan will see the F1 circus arrive, two years after the COVID-19 pandemic struck.
Alain Prost not a fan of F1’s new sprint qualifying concept
In 2021, F1 introduced a 100km race, known as the F1 Sprint. In this format, drivers go flat-out through the course of the race without a pitstop and the top three finishers are awarded points. Sprints took place on three race weekends across the 2021 season and delivered some underwhelming Saturdays for F1 fans. Alain Prost, being more traditional in his view, believes that "Formula 1 has to stay the way it did."
When talking about the concept of having a reverse grid, here's what Prost had to say:
“F1 should not accept that, even for the sprint.”
Referencing Lewis Hamilton's stellar sprint qualifying in Brazil, he added:
“It is not because Lewis has done a fantastic race starting from last in Brazil that we should think that it’s going to be the same every time and with every driver. That does not happen like this. So I am much more for the tradition.”
Alain Prost entered his final race at the Australian Grand Prix in 1993. Nicknamed 'The Professor' for his erudite approach to racing, he prefers the traditional racing structure, even though the sprint qualifying session in Brazil gave the audience an exhilarating show.
