Fernando Alonso has declared F1’s first sprint weekend at a street circuit will be “more challenging” and will cause “more stress” for all the drivers.

F1 features six sprint weekends, with the first of those at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, an event where there have been seven safety cars, two red flags, and three virtual safety cars during the six occasions the race has been staged.

For this weekend around the Baku Street Circuit, F1 has thrown a curveball into the mix with the introduction of an additional qualifying – known as the sprint shootout – ahead of the one-third-distance race later on Saturday.

With two qualifying sessions and two races around a track that has delivered its fair share of accidents and incidents over the years, and on the back of just one 60-minute practice run, there are now more chances for further mayhem.

“It is more challenging, more stress, but I see the point of doing it,” said Aston Martin driver Alonso.

“When I was out of the sport for two years and I was at home, I was not watching practice.

“I have to be honest, they were just too long and boring, and I knew what the people were doing, which you never know at home – how many kilos of fuel they have, what engine maps they are running, all these things. It was not interesting.

“So I see the point of making something different on the weekend, so we have to embrace that, we have to help F1, and hopefully, the fans will give us good feedback on the weekend.

“But it’s more stressful, especially Saturday. I think Friday we are used to this new sprint format that we had last year where we only have one practice.

“So this is challenging for the teams, that in one practice, you need to set up the car for the whole weekend, and then you go into quali.

“But the really different thing now is Saturday, where we have breakfast, we go in the car, we tie the belts, and we are in Q1. This is completely new.

“Even in the past, when I was doing one qualifying on Friday, one on Saturday, back in 2004, 2006, or whatever, we had always practice before qualifying.

“Now we don’t have any practice and we go into qualifying one, so it’s stressful for sure and more difficult for the drivers.”

A driver could look “terribly bad” – Alonso

There is, however, additional opportunity to create something from any chaos that could unfold, particularly should frontrunners Red Bull be involved.

After a trio of third-place finishes to start the season, and with Alonso looking to end his 10-year wait for F1 victory number 33, he said: “I know there is always the talk of chaotic races or difficult weekends that may be an opportunity comes.

“At the moment, when you have a competitive car, the opportunity is only to make a mistake, to be honest, or to really make your weekend bad if you have something go really wrong in Q1 and things like that.

“So I don’t see much of an opportunity of taking advantage of it or capitalising on something unless Red Bull does some mistake.

“So it’s a weekend of avoiding mistakes, not a weekend of making something special, let’s say. So that’s something we need to approach in a very cautious manner.”

The new format, however, would lend itself to suggest the more experienced drivers should benefit from only one practice session. Alonso, however, is not so sure.

“As I said, it’s very easy to make a mistake,” he said.

“At the end of Q3, we have all got the practice and we will all have optimised the lap.

“But in Q1, If you brake late or whatever and you crash, especially here in Baku with no room for a mistake, you will look terribly bad.

“This weekend, there is an opportunity to have a big mistake, not a big opportunity. So we need to avoid that.”