Formula One bosses have rubber-stamped an overhaul of the game’s weekend format, beginning on the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
The six dash rounds of the 2023 season – the primary of which takes place in Baku this weekend – will see the introduction of a second qualifying session after the revamp gained help from the grid’s 10 groups on Tuesday.
Under the adjustments, a brand new standalone qualifying session on Saturday morning will now decide the beginning order for the dash race that afternoon, with qualifying on Friday setting the grid for Sunday’s Grand Prix.
The further qualifying session on Saturday shall be known as the ‘Sprint Shootout’ and is shorter than the standard format. The three classes will final for 12, 10 and eight minutes, with the intention of the concluding shortest operating so as to add better jeopardy.
Qualifying for the Grand Prix itself stays the identical, with Sunday’s major occasion untouched.
The adjustments will apply to the 5 different dash rounds in Austria, Belgium, Qatar, Austin and Brazil this yr, whereas a daily grand prix weekend will stay as it’s.
An announcement from F1 learn: “The F1 commission voted unanimously in favour of changes to the sprint format. These will now come into effect at the first sprint event of the season.
“Following this profitable vote and subsequent approval by the World Motor Sport Council, all stakeholders imagine that this can enhance the spectacle of dash weekends and improve monitor motion for followers all over the world.”
The sprint format, which is one-third distance of a normal grand prix, was first introduced at three rounds in 2021, and has been doubled to six this year.
World champion Max Verstappen has been critical of F1’s plans to expand the sprint calendar – saying at the last round in Australia that he “will not be round for too lengthy” if there are “too many adjustments”.
But F1 bosses are eager to enchantment to the game’s new era of followers, and say the adjustments will present three days of competitors, relatively than two, whereas decreasing three hours of largely meaningless apply to only a single hour.
Source: www.anews.com.tr
