F1: No plans to have every race be a Sprint Weekend

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Speaking in a call with Wall Street analysts, F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali said: “We don’t want to go in a situation where in the future we are going to have all the races with the sprint format.

“We want to keep a limited number of maybe one-third of the calendar in number, and create something special with regard to the competition that we can give a sporting value with trophies and of course, commercial opportunity to these things. I think that’s the right way to go.”

“I see a big trend today in all sports not to be stable, let’s say, not to stay consistent with the old regulation,” he said.

“So, we’re just following what baseball did and just following what the NBA has done.

“That means that all the professional sports need to listen to the requests and to the new input that the fans, promoters and partners are asking to have more excitement around the game.”

“Of course, we did that in accordance with the teams and the FIA,” Domenicali said.

“Because, as you know, our idea is to make sure that during the racing weekend there is always action on the track.

“Actually, the result of the first one of this year has been very encouraging. And every one of our partners, promoters, media partners, and also teams is very positive about that.

“Of course, there is something that we want to take as a lesson learned, to see at the end of summer, if there is something that we can learn to do even something better.

“But in general terms, the first weekend of the sprint format has been great.

“As always, when you want to do something different in a very standardized ecosystem, the reaction of the traditional fans is the one that needs to be awaited for longer term.

“But normally with the new fans we’ve seen a very, very positive reaction. Promoters were pushing for that.”