After the 2024 Chinese GP weekend, Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso took a swipe at the sprint weekend format and opined that it would be better not to have any on the calendar. The #14 driver was tangled in a battle with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz during the sprint race, which eventually led to a puncture for the 42-year-old.
Due to the tire allocation for the weekend, Alonso was also left compromised in terms of strategy for the main Grand Prix on Sunday. RACER quoted him as saying, “The best thing is not to do the sprint, probably.”
Alonso explained this way the drivers would have more sets of tires on a Sunday as well. The two-time world champion also complained about the ‘high stakes, low rewards’ nature of the event after being slammed by three penalty points on his super-license after his incident with Sainz during the race.
The concept of a sprint weekend was introduced by F1 to increase the overall action and excitement for the fans during a race weekend. Sprint races are essentially 100 kms long or 1/3rd of the main race distance.
This means drivers are forced to get their elbows out early and this has led to spectacular racing action. However, this, at times, has come at the cost of drivers making errors, which has also compromised them for the main race on Sundays.
Alonso isn’t the only driver who has criticized this format introduced by F1, which debuted for the first time at the 2021 British GP held at Silverstone. One of the biggest detractors of the sprint format is three-time world champion Max Verstappen himself.
Sprint races are not a popular idea within the F1 paddock
Max Verstappen has been heard slamming the sprint race weekends on more than one occasion in the past. However, his most emphatic rant came at the 2023 United States GP when both Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were disqualified from the main Grand Prix for failing the FIA-mandated post-race checks.
The Dutchman blamed the sprint format for the same. RacingNews365 quoted him as saying, “These things only happen when you have a sprint weekend where everything is so rushed into your in-between FP1 and qualifying.”
Even the 26-year-old’s teammate, Sergio Perez, echoed his sentiments. Following the line of arguments from Fernando Alonso’s most recent comments, Perez was quoted by Sports Illustrated last year as saying, “You hardly gain anything, but you can lose a lot“.
In 2024, F1 has reshuffled the sprint race format. While the racing action has definitely been ramped up as evidenced by China, the drivers still seem to be divided in their opinions.
