As crowned world champion, Max Verstappen continues the trend he set at the start of the season and will stick with it until the championship ends in Ab Dhabi at the end of this month. The Dutchman, who has a total of 19 victories to his name, a record that is hard to beat, won on Sundays and for some years also started on Saturdays, in the sprint races introduced in 2021 in Interlagos, the three-time world champion achieved his fourth victory in these, which served as a foretaste Events, this time more than ever, considering the turmoil caused by the very severe wear of the tires that wreaked havoc on most . Thanks to a brilliant start, “Mad Max” won the first corner against Lando Norris (second) – his reaction time to the lights was one and a half tenths – while Checo Pérez came third. Carlos Sainz crossed the finish line in eighth and Fernando Alonso in 11th in one of the busiest events on the calendar.
With the appearance of the new weekend format, the organizers of the competition tried to shake up the most loyal fans a little and attract new audiences. The three events with short tests in the first year became six with a view to the next ones (2022) and 2023, and the agenda was also revised. This year Saturday was all about sprints, with a special timed session in the morning. In addition, the afternoon result no longer had any impact on Sunday, leading to runners taking more risks as contact or possible accidents were penalized much more heavily than before.
However, the teams regretted that there was only one free practice session, the first on Friday, before the long afternoon qualifying that sets the starting order for Sunday. However, their complaints mainly revolved around the ban on touching the cars after the first contact due to the introduction of the parc ferme conditions. That will change in 2024 under the guise of avoiding confusion among fans, although the changes are still being discussed with everyone involved.
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The issue has gained prominence in recent days after Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were disqualified in Austin due to an irregularity in their cars that the stewards discovered after the race at the Circuit of the Americas. The flat floor panel of the British Mercedes and the Monegasque Ferrari did not reach the minimum thickness, apparently due to the wear and tear to which the floor of their cars was subjected. The engineers believe that this incident could be avoided by relaxing this restriction on touching the cars. One of the proposals being considered is to move qualifying for the sprint to Friday and leave traditional timing to Saturday as before. This would allow technicians to work on the prototypes before this crucial training.
“The idea of sprints came from and for the followers. From a technical point of view, it’s a headache because the car enters parc ferme after just one practice session. And that makes it very difficult for us,” says Tom McCullough, head of performance at Aston Martin from Brazil. “We spoke to Stefano [Domenicali, CEO de la F1]. The sprint qualifying could be completed on Friday, and the second qualifying for the race could take place on Saturday at two o’clock, as is usual. “That would probably cause less confusion,” agreed Mercedes boss Toto Wolff in front of the Sky Sports microphones.
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