Christian Horner has claimed that the rule that means cars are in parc ferme conditions after FP1 during sprint weekends is ‘a joke’. The Red Bull team principal has followed in the footsteps of paddock rival Toto Wolff in questioning the long-term future of sprint races.
Questions were raised about the long-term viability of the sprint race experiment, at least in its current guise, after four cars were forced to start from the pit lane for the Grand Prix in Austin last time out.
To make matters worse, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc’s disqualifications were partially attributed to the restrictions placed on the teams during sprint weekends. Both Mercedes and Ferrari explained that more practice sessions would have likely prevented the set-up mishaps that led to their technical breaches.
Discussing the talking points from sprint weekends in Qatar and Texas, Horner said: “For me, parc fermé is a bit of a joke. You have one session to set your car up, and then the engineers may as well go home at that point,” he told the media in Mexico.
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“So, that needs looking at and that I’m sure was a contributing factor to the ride height issues of the teams that fell foul of the regulations. Effectively, it’s just a long run on a Sprint race. And there’s no real jeopardy to it, there’s no real incentive behind it.”
Horner also called on F1 to gauge fan opinion on sprint races, adding: “I think it’d be interesting to look at the data at the end of the year of how popular the sprint race has been because, at the end of the day, it’s all about the fans.
“The reason we do sprint races is to try and provide more entertainment to create a more attractive event. We have to be honest with ourselves at the end of the year when we’ve got all the samples of the sprint races and say: ‘Okay, what can we do better? What can be learned? And how can we improve the spectacle?’”
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These frustrations are matched by Mercedes boss Wolff, who has advocated for scrapping the sprint race experiment altogether ahead of the 2024 season. As things stand, next season’s calendar will contain another six sprint weekends.
Speaking to Sky Sports F1 about his complaints, the Austrian stated: “I’m more conservative. I don’t like the sprint weekends. I think it’s a weird schedule. You’re taking a lot of suspense away from the Sunday – you see how the ranking is going to fall into place. I’d rather not have them overall.”
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