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Brawn hopes sprint race paves way for more experiments

Brawn hopes sprint race paves way for more experiments

11-07-2021 11:41 Last update: 12:56
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This weekend at Silverstone will see the debut of sprint qualifying. The Friday afternoon practice session will be replaced with a qualifying session that will determine the starting grid for a sprint race on Saturday. The result of this race will determine the starting grid for the main race on Sunday. According to Ross Brawn, the sprint race will pave the way for more experiments in the future.

“I have to say the teams have been massively cooperative and they are just as interested in seeing what the results will be,” Brawn said in front of The Race. “The drivers, once they experience it, can give us their views.

“There’s some traditionalists who don’t understand why we try and change things and then there’s others who are very keen to see what the results will be."

The F1 boss continued. “I think this concept of having a few trial events in Formula 1 is something we should consider for the future with other things, not just the sprint, because it’s been so difficult to evolve changes or formats in Formula 1 in the past."

Brawn hopes for success

“And doing sufficient trial events [so] that you can make a judgement on any change of format or any difference is something we should embrace and consider for the future," Brawn says.

The last, major experiment that took place in Formula 1 was the so-called elimination qualifying. This took place under previous boss Bernie Ecclestone, but it was not a success. If the sprintrace is a successful format, Brawn has six sprintraces in mind for 2022.

“So this is three events where we’re going to trial this format. And if it’s not a success, if we don’t get the response we hope, then we’ll put our hands up and then we’ll stay where we are and we’ll look at other initiatives.

“But I would just ask the traditionalists to wait and see if they enjoy it. And hopefully, they will," Brawn said.