F1, Helmut Marko adamant on Sprint Race format

Helmut Marko unabashedly.

The breezy reform of the Sprint Races in the F1 World Championship continues to cause discussion: the idea, which should find official approval before the Azerbaijan GP, is to have one qualifying session for the Sprint and another for the race, thus making the short race on Saturday independent of the long race on Sunday.

Helmut Marko, at the microphones of ‘Sky Deutschland,’ categorically applauded the hypothesis, even calling the Friday afternoon free practice session “unnecessary”: “I was already saying this last year, this solution would allow the drivers to risk a little more. Last year, a retirement in the Sprint Race would have forced the driver to start last or at least in the back of the pack: this would lead the drivers to manage the vehicle, more than to attempt overtaking.”

“Besides, FP2s are useless,” added the Red Bull advisor. “Deleting them and replacing them with a dedicated qualifying session would give value to the whole Saturday. The improvement would be exponential.”