The upcoming Chinese GP will be the first sprint race weekend of this season. Since F1 will take place in Shanghai after a gap of four years, several drivers, including Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, have criticized the FIA’s decision to make the Chinese GP a sprint race weekend. However, Oscar Piastri has no concern with the FIA’s decision and believes that the race weekend will “be okay”. When asked about the same on the most recent episode of The Fast and the Curious Podcast, Piastri replied,
“The way the format is this year is a bit forgiving. You know, last year, I think one of the issues that most of the teams and drivers had was once you finished practice, you couldn’t adjust the set-up from then on. So hopefully, this year we won’t have any kind of issues like that.”
Since teams are allowed to change the set-up of the cars from one session to another, Piastri added, “So I think from that aspect it’ll be okay“. While Piastri does not foresee too many concerns, the likes of Verstappen and Sainz are worried about another issue.
Both drivers believe that they will not have enough time to prepare for the race weekend because of just the one practice session.
Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz explain their concerns with FIA’s decision
Since F1 has not taken place in Shanghai since 2019, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz believe they need more practice sessions before they can get to qualifying and the main race. However, with F1 set to host a sprint race weekend in Shanghai this year, the Chinese GP will have just one practice session followed by the sprint shootout later in the day.
#F1Sprint is BACK next weekend! #F1 #ChineseGP pic.twitter.com/9ZrAMMHZtT
— Formula 1 (@F1) April 13, 2024
With that in mind, Verstappen said as per si.com, “When you have been away from a track for quite a while, I think you never know what you’re going to experience, right? So it would have been better to have a normal race weekend there.”
Similarly, Sainz also added, “It’s not a good choice to choose to [hold a] sprint after four or five years’ absence”. F1 did not take place in Shanghai between 2020 and 2023 because the Chinese government had imposed restrictions due to COVID-19.
