The 2021 Formula 1 season will be remembered over the years also for the introduction – in its historical way – of the Sprint qualification. A mini-race of 100 km, organized on Saturday and used to define the starting grid for the Sunday GP, which also assigns world championship points to the top three. This new format has already been adopted at Silverstone and Monza and will be repeated a third time this season, at Interlagos. After the first two ‘tests’ the experts were divided between in favor and against the experiment, which will be further investigated and modified during the next season.
Among the critics of the format currently used for the Sprint Qualifying there is also the Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff. The Austrian manager recognized the usefulness of the experiment from a commercial point of view, but he appeared decidedly less persuaded on a sporting level. “Commercially sprint races are an advantage – Wolff acknowledged a Sky Sports – because we have a full Friday, a mini race on Saturday and then the Grand Prix on Sunday. But I don’t like the sprint race format on Saturday“ added the number one of the black-silver box.
What makes Wolff skeptical is also the apparent contradiction of the few points at stake, which therefore do not entice those in the rear to risk overtaking, combined with the function of the mini-race to define the starting grid of the GP. The danger of being forced to start from the rear is in fact a further deterrent to the possibility of seeing action on the track. “There is too little at stake in one way and too much in another – commented the Viennese manager – because you don’t want to find yourself at the bottom of the grid. Maybe we should change the points distribution a bit, or the length of the race“. In this regard Wolff, perhaps still burned by the error at the start of Lewis Hamilton in Monza, let himself go to a joke: “If it’s the start that counts, we can only do two laps” he commented, laughing.