World champion Max Verstappen, in particular, was highly critical of the concept as he was not in favor of shorter races on Saturdays. He reiterated his position in Brazil on Thursday when he said one of the big negatives of the sprints was that drivers were reluctant to take too many risks for fear of falling down the grid for Sunday’s main race. “Honestly, I’m not a big fan of it because I feel like we’re not really competing,” he said. “There are some points you get but you also know you can’t risk it because the main race is where you really get the points. You don’t pitstop, so you just put the tire that will last the distance, right? “With these cars, the racing is probably a bit better. But overall, you don’t really see a lot of overtaking unless there’s a car out of position. So, yeah, it’s not really that fun for me.” F1 only recently got the green light for six sprint races for 2023 and now the planning process has begun for those involved with the teams and the FIA. As well as finalizing the location of the sprints in the coming weeks, it is understood that F1 plans to discuss the idea of making Saturday’s event completely standalone. That means it will be a points-only affair, with the grid for Sunday’s main grand prix likely to be decided by Friday’s traditional qualifying race. Haas driver Kevin Magnussen said such an idea would be good to allow drivers to push a bit more. “Max has a good point that the risks you want to take in the sprint are less because he decides the position for Sunday,” he said. “Well, I think maybe a good adjustment would be to separate it so you can do that.” Max Verstappen leads the rest of the field at the start of the Austrian GP sprint. Photo by: Glenn Dunbar / Motorsport Images F1 motorsport chief executive Ross Brawn said after the first sprint at Silverstone last year that drivers had already pushed for an autonomous – and that the sport was open to making it happen. “I think that’s probably going to be the key issue, whether we take another step and make it stand-alone,” Brown said in an interview at the time. “I think we will have to look at the number of points awarded and how we determine the starting grid. So that should be what happened on Friday? “As you know, [Sergio] Perez retired at Silverstone [in the sprint] and then obviously the Sunday match was largely submitted to him. So should we set the starting order on Friday and for Saturday and Sunday?” Verstappen made it clear he was open to discussing ways to improve the sprints. “I know of course we’ll have six next year,” he said. “But, I mean, we can find things to talk about if we want it in a different way to maybe make it a little bit more exciting, at least for me. But we’ll see.”
