Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur has revealed that an agreement has been reached between all the teams to tweak the format on a sprint race weekend.
Speaking yesterday to selected media outlets, the Frenchman confirmed that two qualifying sessions will take place to decide the grid for the two races.
“(In) Baku, you have the two qualis and the two races and we have to be able as a team to do a better job,” he said.
“For once I think all the teams were aligned. It’s not very often that it’s the case so we have to jump on it.”
Photo credit: Scuderia Ferrari
In the previous six sprint events across 2021 and 2022, qualifying took place on Friday afternoon to determine the grid for the sprint race. The sprint on Saturday afternoon decided the order for the main event on Sunday.
However, this new format means qualifying on Friday shapes the grid for Sunday, with a separate qualifying on Saturday morning to decide the grid for the sprint later in the day.
The changes made to the weekend format sees the end of the rather pointless FP2 session that took place between qualifying and the sprint. Vasseur is a big fan of the new format.
“I like the format. I’m not a big fan of the usual FP2, sometimes it’s a bit boring,” said Vasseur. “To try to have something more dynamic during the weekend is a good decision.
“If you watch football you are not watching the session on Wednesday when they are training in the stadium, and we are probably the only sport where we are putting on TV the training session.”
In total there will be six sprints taking place in 2023, double from what we saw in 2021 and 2022. Alongside Azerbaijan, they will take place at Austria, Belgium, Qatar, Circuit of the Americas and São Paulo.
