The F1 season continues in Imola. The time trials will be run as early as Friday, when the first sprint race of the season is scheduled for Saturday. Last season, Valtteri Bottas won two of the three sprints.
The F1 season continues with the first race in Europe of the season, with formulas turning to the traditional Imola track in Italy.
The F1 race was run continuously in Imola between 1980 and 2006. Unfortunately, the track is also remembered for the black weekend of 1994, when an Austrian died in time on Saturday. Roland Ratzenberger and in the next day’s race, the three-time world champion, the Brazilian Ayrton Senna.
Imola returned to the F1 calendar in the 2020 season, when the corona pandemic was mixed and replacement races were needed. That’s when the race won Lewis Hamilton before his teammate Valtteri Bottasta and driven by Renault Daniel Ricciardoa. Last season was the fastest Max Verstappen before Hamilton and McLaren Lando Norrisia.
Now in Imola, on the fourth race weekend of the season 2022, the first sprint race of the season will also be run.
What is a sprint race?
Due to the sprint race, the time trials are already in the program tonight, on Friday at 6 pm. The sprint race, on the other hand, will decide the starting boxes for Sunday’s race.
Sports also monitors time trials, sprint races and competitions from time to time on its website.
This year, the program includes three weekends with a sprint race. In addition to Imola, the sprint will be run in Austria in July and in Brazil in November, the second last weekend of the season.
The sprint race will cover about 100 kilometers, or a third of the length of the actual race. In Imola, that means 21 laps, with 63 laps (309 km) in Sunday’s race.
Last season, the experiment shared opinions
Sprint races were tried for the first time last season. The intention was to bring new color to the F1 weekends, but it didn’t quite work out. The sprints were felt boring because the drivers didn’t want to take risks that might pay off in the face of Sunday’s race.
– Nothing happens in sprints. I see no benefit in organizing them. I can imagine it’s boring for the fans too, and it’s boring for the drivers, the Red Bull team Sergio Perez criticized, among other things According to Motorsport (you switch to another service) after the second sprint last season.
– Obviously this change has been made to make the show better, so you have to see if the fans are happy, Perez continued.
Sports Director of Formula 1 Ross Brawn did not startle with criticism last season. He said “traditional”, dedicated F1 fans criticized the sprint reform, but newer fans were interested in it. Previously, only free practice was run on Friday, but now the time trial is already on Friday night, which, according to Brawn, increases interest throughout the weekend.
– Most of our “regular” fans, and especially our new fans, welcomed the concept. They especially liked Friday’s activities. They felt Friday was worth watching, which it hadn’t been before, Brawn explained According to Racefans (you switch to another service).
The F1 organizers did not abandon the sprint concept, but it has now been modified. So far, F1 has abandoned the idea that the sprint could be run every third weekend, for example. There are three sprints in the program, like last season.
Last season in the sprint race, points were awarded to the top three (3-2-1). This season, more races are hoped for in the sprints by dividing the points into the top eight. The winner of the sprint gets eight points, the second seven and so on.
It is now possible to get as many as 34 points from one race weekend (8 points for a sprint win, 25 points for a race win and an extra point for the fastest lap of the race). Winning all the sprint races of the season would thus give you 24 points, or almost one race win.
Last season, a total of 6 points were awarded in the World Championship table in the sprint race, now 36 points this season.
In addition, last season’s time trial victory statistics got number one in the sprint race, which was one of the drivers’ criticisms. This has also changed: in the future, the winner of the actual time trial will receive the time trial victory in his statistics on Friday.
This is how we sprinted last season
The sprints received criticism last year for their boredom, but they also saw significant events in the name of truth, especially in terms of tip. The first sprint in history was run in Silverstone in July.
Lewis Hamilton won the time trials, but at the start of the sprint race, Max Verstappen rose past and won. So Verstappen got off the pole in a race where, however, he crashed right from the start with Hamilton.
The other two sprints in 2021 were run on the Monza track in Italy and in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
In Monza, Valtteri Bottas won the time trials and sprint, but had to leave the race at the tail of the team due to the penalty of the engine change.
The Monza race also became dramatic – that was enough last season. The race’s double victory was driven by McLaren’s Ricciardo and Norris as Verstappen and Hamilton crashed out each other in the middle of the race.
In Brazil, too, Bottas won the time trials and sprint. Hamilton’s masterful rise in particular spoke at the time. He was dismissed in time for an irregular back wing. That’s why Hamilton started the sprint from the crew’s tail, but managed to rise to fifth.
On Sunday, Hamilton then became the winner of the entire race before Verstappen and Bota.
It remains to be seen what extra color sprint weekends will get when the rules are changed and, above all, when cars experience major, overtaking changes for this season. In that respect, the beginning of the season promises good.