Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff has ridiculed the prospect of F1 resorting to a reverse grid sprint, believing it would be “really stupid” and akin to WWE.
F1 has unveiled its sprint calendar for 2024, with races in China and Miami new additions as replacements for Azerbaijan and Belgium, with Austria, Austin, São Paulo, and Qatar all retained.
A format change for next season is certain to be voted through at the next F1 Commission meeting in early to mid-January, which would see the sprint shootout run on Friday evening, followed by the sprint on Saturday ahead of grand prix qualifying.
Also under discussion, however, is that part of the sprint grid could be reversed, and how best it could be achieved.
Wolff feels if the move was sanctioned it would add a farcical element to the sprint on which he is “not the biggest fan because I think it dilutes the value of the grand prix”.
Speaking to select media, including Speedcafe, at the recent Abu Dhabi GP, Wolff added: ‘I can understand the service, that people like it – there’s more people like it than don’t.
“Maybe I’m too purist, too old school, but I’d rather have a grand prix than a sprint race weekend. We need to know that a grand prix is at two or three o’clock in the afternoon, and that’s it.
“We’ve now done these sprint race weekends, and we are tweaking the format, which I think is positive.
“To a degree, you do a sprint qualifying, you do a sprint race, you do grand prix qualifying, and you do a grand prix. That works much better.
“We talked about reverse grid races. I can get my head around a reverse grid sprint race because at least we are really declaring that’s the stupid race. Six times a year, we’re doing something that is really stupid, and everybody knows to differentiate that.
“There will be other winners and different podiums, that’s refreshing. So we do WWE on Saturday six times, and then we play Formula 1 24 times on Sunday.”
Although there has also been talk of a sprint championship, it appears this is not on the agenda for the F1 Commission.
At present, with the top eight in a sprint scoring points, Wolff feels running reverse grids would again taint the championship.
Wolff feels F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali “knows what he’s doing because he has all the data in the background”.
He said: “I’m questioning myself. Too purist? Too old school? Too stubborn? Maybe.
“The data shows there is an interest for the sprint race weekend, so for me to kind of get my head around it, again, make it really stupid, without distorting the main championship.
“What are we doing with points? That’s a different question.”
Wolff has also questioned the alternative tyre allocation, which at two events this past year resulted in the dictation of the tyres that could be used in each of three qualifying segments – hards in Q1, mediums in Q2, and softs in Q3.
Although designed to save tyres during a grand prix weekend, Wolff said: “There’s another variable. I’m not sure. Maybe we do it everywhere. I don’t know.
“But there are a few question marks. We just have a few unknowns we have to sort out. Maybe not all at once.”
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