Carlos Sainz has encouraged Formula 1 to keep experimenting with Sprint races despite complaints elsewhere that the format needs a permanent solution.
The Sprint alteration was introduced in 2021 to enhance select grand prix weekends, but an array of alterations have been made in the intervening years amid vehement criticism.
But the revised schedule has continued to divide opinion following a series of drab events that revealed the performance trends of the cars prior to Sunday’s main encounter.
During the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend it was announced that the F1 Commission had granted its approval for more modifications to be submitted ahead of the next season.
The Sprint format will continue to be present at six events across the 2024 season, with Miami and China being added to the roster alongside Austin, Austria, Brazil and Qatar.
It is touted that Sprint qualifying will be moved back to Friday, followed by the Sprint on Saturday before the one-hour qualifying session for the grand prix later that day.
Meanwhile, a radical move to reverse part of the grid from Sprint qualifying is under discussion, having been suggested by Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Christian Horner.
Sainz has admitted that the format needs to be overhauled but says he would be open to the sport’s decision-makers continuing to trial various changes as it has been doing.
“I think right now, I agree that six is enough,” Sainz said.
“I agree that Saturday’s too revealing of what’s going to happen on Sunday. It is basically the first stint of the race of Sunday, what you’re watching on TV, and this doesn’t help, I think, the show for the main race that is the grand prix.
“So you arrive to the point, you’d better try something else on Saturday. Is that reverse grids? Is that single-lap qualifying? Whatever, I don’t know.
“But I think given that the Sprint format is a bit of an experiment going on right now in Formula 1, I would be open to keep experimenting to see which format is best.
“For me the one we have now, just Saturday, doesn’t feel completely right for what then comes on Sunday.”
However, Sainz remains in the minority as various F1 team bosses have urged the sport to consider a long-term resolution instead of implementing continuous tweaks each year.
“This is where you’ve got to do the research,” Horner said in Abu Dhabi. “I think it’s very important that the next step that we make is one that is fixed for a long period of time.
“This Sprint concept is a new concept that’s been introduced. And in some areas it’s very popular and with some traditionalists, it’s very unpopular.”
McLaren team boss Andrea Stella concurred with Horner, adding: “There are positives in the Sprint events. “We also need to give the time to absorb some different ways of interpreting Formula 1 race weekends.
“And we need to make sure that we don’t change too often, too rapidly, because then we wouldn’t have this time to adapt, absorb to a certain way in which we intend a Formula 1 race weekend.
“And this is why we think that while improvements have to be made, they should be relatively incremental, have a few more Sprint races, and then we can have better data, better information to see in which direction the business of Formula 1 should go.”
Why does this boring writer, Powling, keep repeating the same tedious line in so many pieces that the Sprint reveals the performance trends of the cars before Sunday. Qualifying does that. It puts the fastest at the front and the slowest at the back. Always has. Unless the suggestion is to scrap qualifying and line up twenty abreast in lanes, as though it’s an Olympic 100m race. I suppose it’d make the first corner interesting.
The best way to put value into the Sprint is to do as it did at the outset, have the result set the grid for the Grand Prix. If they do that, then how they play around with the order and length of the practice and qualifying sessions doesn’t really matter too much.