In Silverstone and Monza, the two venues that have hosted sprint qualifying races so far this year, Friday training will be reduced to just 60 minutes instead of the usual 120 minutes.
On this day there will also be a qualifying, which will determine the starting grid for the sprint race on Saturday.
The format has made the only Friday practice session more important and intense for F1 teams, which was welcomed by several drivers.
“I really like this format for Friday,” said Leclerc. “I think it’s definitely something positive for Friday. I’m a bit bored on normal Friday because FP1, FP2 have nothing to gain, nothing to lose.
“You do a little more laps, that’s always good, but you have so many other chances to regain what you lost in FP1, for example.
“Now the FP1 is a natural session that is really worth pushing and finding the limits. And I think it’s good for us drivers, too, to just hit a track and push straight away.
“It’s also more interesting for the show. Personally, I really like the Friday format.”
Ferrari team-mate Sainz agrees that Fridays have become more exciting thanks to the reduced running.
“I think Friday has improved a lot for everyone, it’s progress,” he said. “I find FP1 exciting because you know that you can’t do anything wrong and that you have to learn.
“Even for the teams with the amount of simulation tools that exist these days, it forces the teams to be modern and up-to-date and to oversee the simulations in order to put together a good car on Friday.” beautiful.”
Photo by: Charles Coates / Motorsport Images
However, both Leclerc and Sainz agree that the sprint qualifying race format needs to be improved to be more interesting for fans and drivers after the Monza race wasn’t as fun as the Silverstone one.
“I didn’t like it that much here in Monza,” said Leclerc. “And I have a feeling that there might be a room to just try something different for Sprint Qualifying.
“There have already been a lot of ideas. And I think we’re more or less on the same line to just do something different for the sprint qualifying.”
Sainz added: “I agree with Charles that we need to find a way to make Saturday a little more exciting because right now I don’t think there is much excitement compared to Saturday qualifying.
“I don’t see a sprint qualifying as more exciting than a Saturday qualifying. So we have to find a way to make Saturday a little more exciting.”
Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto suggested welcoming reverse grid racing as an experiment over the Italian GP weekend, but insisted he stay open to other ideas.
“I think that the new format is still a positive experiment when you look at it for the whole weekend, obviously not for the single day, but for the weekend as a whole, as there is already a lot to do on Friday, I think it’s positive, “said Binotto.
“So overall, I think we should rate it positively. How can we improve it now? Obviously there are some ideas for reversing the setup.
“If not, I’m pretty sure that there will be other discussions or ideas through the F1 commission with F1, the FIA and all the other team bosses. So I’m completely open-minded.”
“I think what we need is to honestly see this as an overall positive experiment that needs or can be improved. And let’s see what the better ideas can be compared to the one I proposed.”
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