If you’ve never watched it before, Formula One does qualifying on the Saturday before the race. In our neck of the woods you can most likely catch it early in the morning on ESPN or ESPN2. If you haven’t watched it Qualifying takes place under what’s called a “knockout format” meaning the session is divided into three rounds Q1, Q2, and Q3. Five of the slowest drivers are eliminated after the close of each session leaving the top ten drivers remaining in Q3. Q1 lasts 18 minutes, Q2 lasts 15 minutes, and Q3 lasts twelve minutes with drivers allowed to completed as many laps as they wish during each session if they continue on. There is a special rule however, that drivers that make from Q2 to Q3 have to start the race on their Q2 tire, the ten drivers eliminated up to this point will have free choice of tire at the beginning of the race.
There’s a lot more to qualifying than just what you’ve read. Is the track clear? Is it rubbered in? do we want to start on the mediums or softs? Qualifying is an event in and of itself. In 2019 I dove into Formula One and while consuming every possible podcast from Missed Apex to Pitlane Podcast, I began to hear a theme. Formula One is boring. I mean don’t get me wrong it kind of was as Lewis Hamilton seemed to be smashing the 2019 season into oblivion and hadn’t stopped since Crofty’s first “light’s out” call. I picked up live racing somewhere around Austria of that year and watching Lewis hunt down Verstappen during that Hungary race was a spectacle to behold.
Now I will carry the shame of not knowing how qualifying worked at that time, I would see jokes on Reddit of Stroll knocking on the door of Q3 but had no context of what it meant. As discussions unfolded throughout the season another theme became present, do a sprint race. Now, me being a new fan thought “Fuck Yea! More racing!”, however it wasn’t long until the more logical questions began to make cracks in the shiny surface of a potential new format. The most prevalent thought became “What happens if there’s a huge crash and the car can’t race on Sunday? What’s the point in doing the sprint race for less points and ruining the car when you can just do the normal race and score more points?”.
With news breaking during the 2021 season, there will be three sprint races held during this calendar year, the change fans want seems to be granted. The British, Italian, and Brazilian Grand Prix will all hold a normal qualifying on Friday, a sprint race on Saturday, and the feature race on Sunday. Sounds great right? Well not really. This is sort of a gimmick that isn’t really needed.
Fine I get Lewis and Max swapping pole position every other weekend can be boring but the excitement for the past few years has always been the midfield. Look at Monza 2019 when the traffic jam hit and nobody knew what to do during Q3 resulting in most of the drivers missing their final runs. That was exciting. See F1 doesn’t necessarily need this gimmick of the sprint race. I have a feeling that more people need to actually watch qualifying to see what they’re missing. As much as I thought it was a good idea, I now see the charade for what it is.
If we really wanted to add more excitement and more racing to a weekend, why aren’t we promoting the F2 and other feeder series that can occur during an F1 weekend? I mean we rarely get to see these up and coming stars until maybe the end of the F2 season, so why not show them when they’re around and give the sport more TV time especially where it’s needed in America. Guess what? When F2 is around for the weekend they not one, but two sprint races AND a feature race. Why aren’t we making more of this?! Let’s figure out a way to shine a light on the younger guys and really make the whole thing a televised event? Why risk F1 cars in three spots during the season when F2 does this EVERY weekend they are there?
There is nothing wrong with the current format. Maybe we should make some tweaks like dropping FP3, removing the Q2 tire rule, and a few others, but at this point all the sprint races are doing is trying to band-aid a wound that needs stitches. See F1 as a whole needs to change to be more exciting, not just this specific piece of it. One of the biggest problems today is the modern car’s ability to follow the car in front of it and that’s where 2022 comes in. I might be calling it early but with the small regulation changes this year, and the seemingly amazing potential for the 2021 season to be full of close races, just maybe the FIA got onto something for 2022, and just maybe they got it right. The excitement will come, just wait one more season.