Formula 1 is looking for a way to revolutionize its World Championship to once again attract the public’s attention. New formats are studied, about which Bernie Ecclestone, former F1 boss, has spoken in an interview for Auto Motor un Sport. He gets ‘wet’ about sprint races, but puts a nuance on it if the organization wants it to have relevance like Sunday’s race.
Ecclestone believes that sprint races are a good idea if the grid is partially reversed for Sunday’s test, as it is done in Formula 1. So the format of Sunday’s race would not be repetitive with a few Very similar results and a mastery of the same cars as on Saturday.
Short races are something that the F1 Commission seems to be in favor of implementing. At the moment, it has been studied adding a short race as a test in three of the Grand Prix of the 2021 calendar, although for now a final decision has not been made. There will be a meeting later in which it will be assessed whether, finally, to add them or not.
“It’s an old idea that was already being discussed in my day,” Ecclestone said. The key here is to get it right. People would only see the main race if they were offered something different than the short race, “he explains. And he asks himself a question: Why should Sunday’s race be different from Saturday’s, if its result makes up the starting grid? of the main race? “.
The ‘Ecclestone model’
The inverted grid was previously rejected, although Ecclestone proposes something similar: “You have to award points for the short race and then reverse the grid for the main race. If the winner of the short race gets fifteen points, they have to go back fifteen places in the grill on Sunday, “he details.
He is clear that this way both the Saturday and Sunday tests would have importance and would give rise to new strategies: “My system makes both races exciting. Because on Saturday someone would ask the question: should I win the sprint race but lose? positions on the grid, or is it better to finish sixth in the sprint race and then start fourth in the main race? With that maybe I would earn more points. And it’s also nice to see cars at the front of the grid that normally wouldn’t be. “
