The FIA F-1 Commission will put to a vote this Thursday a novelty that can revolutionize the Formula 1 championship as it has been conceived during the 71 editions disputed: the introduction of a short race, a sprint race , on Grand Prix Saturdays, which would be scored for the World Championship classification, starting in 2021. In an experimental way, this year it would take place in the GPs of Canada, Italy and Brazil.
The idea came from Liberty Media, the manager of the F-1, with the intention of increasing the show on race weekends, with tighter and more competitive sessions, and thus increasing the business value of the big circus .
As has transpired in recent hours – through the BBC and the web racefans.net -, the short race would be about 100 km (a third of the current ones), on Saturday afternoons, and would distribute half of the points given on Sunday, that is, 12.5 to the winner, 9 to the second, 7.5 to the third, 6 to the fourth, 5 to the fifth, 4 to the sixth, 3 to the seventh and 2 to the eighth. Only the first 8 drivers would score.
The final classification of this race would establish the starting grid for Sunday’s long race, thus eliminating the traditional qualifying session. Also, the starting order of this short race would be set at a qualy on Friday afternoon (replacing free practice-2).
Liberty Media’s plan is that if this new format, which is intended to be applied experimentally in 2021 in three GPs, were to be a success, it would be implemented in all races in 2022.
For the proposal to go ahead, Liberty Media’s plan – promoted by its new CEO Stefano Domenicali – should have the backing of 28 of the 30 members of the F-1 Commission (10 votes correspond to the FIA, 10 to Liberty Average and the remaining 10 to the teams).
Short races are common in training championships such as the F-2 and F-3, or before the GP2 and GP3. Another peculiarity of these championships are the inverted grids (the formation that starts is the reverse of the classification of the previous race). F1 teams, led by Mercedes, vetoed the initial proposal to adopt this novelty.