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This weekend saw Formula 1’s first attempt in a sprint race in place of a traditional qualifying session. After an incredible start from second place, Red Bull Racing’s Max Verstappen managed to win the race with almost two seconds, meaning he will start Sunday’s Grand Prix from pole position.
As a reminder, the sprint race on Saturday replaces the qualifying session on Saturday; the order of arrival of the speed race fixes the starting order of the Sunday race. This is a quick 30-minute race designed to allow teams and drivers to go all out to try and secure the best possible starting position. The starting grid for the sprint race on Saturday is set by a traditional style qualifying session on Friday; the first of the Friday session is called Pirelli Speed King while the winner of the sprint race will be the poleman.
Max Verstappen, second, got off to a much better start than Speed King Lewis Hamilton, who had to fight with Valtteri Bottas for this second position. Hamilton quickly chased the rear of Verstappen’s car, attempting to pass the Dutch driver. But his move to Verstappen saw Hamilton lose ground.
Meanwhile, Sergio Perez moved up to seventh after a poor qualifying session while Fernando Alonso moved from 11th to fifth. At the back of the grid, Nikita Mazepin spun his Haas, and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz Jr. dropped to 18th place after making contact.
On lap five, the Red Bull Racing driver spun just before the Hangar straight, making a loop with the car before returning to the track in 19th place. He epitomizes the stakes at hand: his team will be hard pressed to get their car repaired before the race, and Perez has been costed a better starting position.
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There were also many great battles involving Fernando Alonso, facing the two McLaren drivers at Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo. This was a great observation, which was certainly a highlight of the sprint racing concept – and it showed the low spots of the soft tires, which provided a great boost at the start but quickly fell off by the time the number of turns has reached two digits.
Other than that, however, the sprint race was largely just a condensed version of what you would expect from th
Points are only awarded to the top three, meaning Verstappen has scored three world championships points for winning, Hamilton scored two points for finishing second and Bottas scored one.
Did the sprint race format work? It was not bad. Once the excitement of the first lap subsided it turned into a sort of parade, which was the biggest criticism raised about this format before the sprint race was implemented.
At the same time, fans on the track had more races and more guaranteed action on the track. Yes, it was largely just a shorter version of a standard F1 race, bBut it was more entertaining than a third practice session with more stakes than a traditional qualifying session. We’ll have to wait until Sunday to really see how things turn out, but for now it looks like the sprint race has taken all the best parts of a Grand Prix and condensed it, leaving the main event to hope for the best. .
HealthyAy’s starting grid:
- Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
- Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
- Valtteri Bottas (Mercedes)
- Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
- Lando Norris (McLaren)
- Daniel Ricciardo (McLaren)
- Fernando Alonso (Alpine)
- Sebastian Vettel (Aston Martin)
- George Russell (Williams)
- Esteban Ocon (Alpine)
- Carlos Sainz Jr. (Ferrari)
- Pierre Gasly (Alpha Tauri)
- Kimi Raikkonen (Alfa Romeo)
- Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)
- Antonio Giovinazzi (Alfa Romeo)
- Yuki Tsunoda (Alpha Tauri)
- Nicolas Latifi (Williams)
- Mick Schumacher (Haas)
- Nikita Mazepin (Haas)
- Sergio Perez (Red Bull)
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