The mini race will only give points and no longer pole. Qualifying on Friday to establish the starting order for the Sunday GP, while the session to establish the Sprint grid will take place instead of free practice 2 on Saturday
– Milan
Gentlemen F1 drivers, we change. In advance of the first round of the season, the Sprint, or the shortened race on Saturday, is transformed. It had made its debut in 2021 to define the starting grid for the Sunday GP. And since then we have been trying to find its place and “sense”. In that first season the pole went precisely to the winner of the race on Saturday, and the author of the best time in the actual qualifying sessions on Friday thus remained outside the roll of honor. In 2022, while maintaining the same format in practice, it was decided – rightly – to give the official pole to the fastest on Friday, even if the winner on Saturday was then awarded the first pitch of the GP. Good for Kevin Magnussen who managed the feat with which he entered the books on Friday in Interlagos, thanks to the rain.
two poles in f1
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But now another change is ready. A reversal of the format unanimously voted by the teams in Australia, which is not yet official but will become so on Tuesday at the Formula 1 Commission meeting, just in time for Baku, for the first of six sprint weekends of this 2023. Friday morning will remain as always, dedicated to free practice. In the afternoon, as in the last two years, qualifying takes place with the usual sequence of Q1, Q2 and Q3: the best will go to pole, for the almanacs and the race. And this is the novelty: although there is a Sprint, the grid is decided by qualifying, as usual, only that it will take place on Friday. While to define the starting order of the shortened race on Saturday, a second qualifying session is being introduced which will replace the morning free practice, FP2. It could be called Shoot-Off and it is not yet defined how it will be structured: it should have three sessions like in ordinary qualifying, but of shorter duration, given that for each of the three each driver will have only one set of tires available. Just as 13 sets will remain for the weekend. In fact, that definition that Liberty Media and Fia held dear in 2021: Sprint Qualifying, is no longer valid.
f1, one more race
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One more race Because Saturday becomes a completely separate day, a sort of foreign body within the weekend. It seems like a minor detail compared to the original Sprint program, but in reality the difference is enormous. By removing the task of determining the starting order, the Saturday Sprint is released from the Sunday race. And in fact this is how the advent of the double race in Formula 1 is blessed: a mini-race with a reduced score (8 points for the winner, then decreasing up to eighth place) which has a life of its own, to be added to the traditional one. In other words, it can be said that next Saturday, over a distance of 17 laps, the Baku Half-Hour will take place. It might come as a surprise that the teams all agreed. In reality, the previous weekend-Sprint format made FP2 on Saturday morning almost useless, given that already from the previous day’s qualifying sessions it was a parc fermé regime, without the possibility of intervening on the set-up of the car. The riders have already expressed conflicting opinions about the reduction of free practice sessions: Max Verstappen recently said he was against it. In the past, Charles Leclerc had instead welcomed the idea of sprints precisely to reduce interlocutory outings on the track. Oscar Piastri has recently expressed the same opinion.
running change for f1
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This new habit of changing format while the championship is in progress sounds rather strange. Last year there was the precedent of the Technical Directive 39 (the anti-porpoising, to limit the hopping of the single-seaters), which came into force for safety reasons at Spa. A much more substantial change, especially since this time the change comes in extremis, but still before the first Sprint of the year. The idea is strengthened that Liberty intends to fill all the days on the track with scores, content, something to fight for. Many purists don’t like it, while the promoters of the various racetracks certainly do. For the general public, however, we will see.
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