Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft has suggested a new sprint format in the recent Sky Sports F1 podcast.
Photo: Scuderia Ferrari Press Office
Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft has suggested an interesting new format for sprint weekends. The current format was brought in prior to the first sprint weekend of the season in Azerbaijan.
The current format features both sprint sessions on the Saturday with the sprint shootout and sprint race on one day. The sprint shootout is a shorter version of the normal qualifying session and decides the grid for the sprint race in the afternoon. The sprint race takes place over 100km and the race is normally 25 to 30 minutes long.
The sprint race also gives out points which contribute to the world championships with first place receiving 8 points down to 8th receiving 1 point. Although, Croft isn't a fan of this idea.
Croft is a fan of the sprint idea but isn't keen on its contribution to the world championship: "I think the sprint concept is good. I like it, but I don't like it being part of the world championship. I'd like 2 separate championships." Croft explained.
On the podcast, he also brought up the idea of holding the sprint race on a Friday: "...and have your sprint day on a Friday maybe rather than the Saturday and you could go into sprint qualifying and then the sprint with maybe a 20 minute warm-up in the morning. That's your Friday."
Croft then explains that from Saturday onwards, it would be a normal weekend with a Saturday practice and qualifying and the main race on Sunday.
He also suggests that reserve drivers can compete in the sprint race: "If the drivers don't want to run in the sprint world championship, fine. There's enough reserve drivers that do. Maybe that's a good way of getting the reserve drivers involved in that. So commercially, that's kind of what I would look at."