Ross Brawn wants to double the number of sprint races

Ross Brawn, sporting director of Formula 1, plans to double the number of sprint events in 2023, and the duel between Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc at the end of today’s sprint at Imola was another confirmation of the correctness for him. of this approach.

“I am very satisfied with how the sprint race went. Great show, fight on the track, lots of overtaking – we showed the cars can chase each other closely – Brown quotes ESPN as saying. – I know you can say it’s all thanks to DRS, but you can’t use DRS until you get close to the opponent’s car, so I think everything went well overall.

We want six of these races next year. I think team leaders also see that everything is going well. Last year we didn’t know what we were going to do with the previous generation of cars, but I think now they see that the new cars are very suitable for such races.

I’m optimistic and I think everyone will see the benefits of this format, even the fans. In relation to the sprint, one more important thing to remember is that with this format, Friday is also great. The audience will get three days full of highlights and there is no getting around that.”

Not everyone shares Ross Brawn’s enthusiasm, especially Mercedes driver George Russell, who finished 11th, said after finishing the sprint that his distance would have to be at least 50% longer to start rubber degradation, and this would affect the results .

Commenting on his comments, Brown said: “When a driver has a bad car, he always complains about how the race went. I don’t think the opinion of George or anyone who was in the back of the pack is an opinion that should be listened to.

We listen to the views of those fighting in the foreground. Of course we will listen to everyone, we are not going to ignore anyone’s opinion, but we have to look at everything from a broader perspective. There was a lot of overtaking in the middle of the peloton and in the leading group.”