Verstappen wins pole for the Sprint race, F1’s appetizer before the Miami Grand Prix
Saturday, Formula 1’s Crypto.com Miami Grand Prix weekend joins the sprinkling of F1 race weekends that give you two F1 races — appetizer and main course — on one weekend.
This is the second of six Formula 1 Sprint race weekends, the Sprint being a Saturday race with a maximum length of 60 minutes that should take about 30 minutes for the 19 laps or about a quarter of a grand prix’s length.
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As he has for each of the grands prix this season, Max Verstappen drove his Red Bull to the pole position for the noon race with a lap of 1:28.595. Verstappen won the first Sprint race, at F1’s last stop, China, but did so from the fourth position after McLaren’s Lando Norris took pole.
Introduced in 2021 as a part of Formula 1’s pivot toward fan friendliness, F1’s website explains the Sprint’s raison d’etre as, “Many spectators enjoy simply watching the cars during a practice session, but it isn’t everyone’s idea of a good time. The Sprint format guarantees meaningful action every day, with either points or grid position at stake.
“It gives fans at the track the opportunity to see F1 cars absolutely flat-out on each day of the event, and gives viewers at home more racing to enjoy.”
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It’s speed chess to chess, although maybe it would be more accurate to say speed to speed chess. In a 30-minute race, there’s no time for track position via cagey pit strategy or tire strategy, and little time for patience on the track. The top eight finishers get points, eight for first, seven for second, etc., that count toward the drivers’ championship.
“The venues chosen for Sprint events are all tracks with great overtaking potential, picked to try and ensure the Sprint is a flat-out, aggressive melee from start to finish,” Formula 1’s website explainer says.
In addition to Miami and the aforementioned China stop, Sprint weekends will be in Austin, Austria, Brazil and Qatar. Perhaps not accidentally, two of F1’s three stops in the United States, where NASCAR and IndyCar fans are used to more overtaking (passing) than an F1 grand prix contains, are Sprint weekends.
Any race penalty in a Sprint race that would normally kick over to the next race will be served during that weekend’s grand prix. Teams can repair crash damage before the grand prix but can’t swap out the whole chassis. If that has to happen, the driver must start from the pit, just as if he destroyed his already-qualified car in practice.
While F1 sells Sprint races as a more intense bite for fans to devour, Sprint weekends shove many flavors of intensity and stress down the throats of drivers, mechanics and teams.
Instead of two practice sessions, there’s only one, leaving little time for making up ground if you don’t come out of the box close to where you want to be in grand prix qualifying. Also, some drivers didn’t like the format you’ll see Saturday with a Sprint race at noon and Miami Grand Prix qualifying at 4 p.m.
Last year, weekends with Sprint races scheduled grand prix qualifying on Friday and Saturday was Sprint day —qualifying and race on the same day.
“I would prefer having a Sprint qually, then have the grand prix qually the next morning,” Williams’ Logan Sargeant said. “I don’t think it’s great having a Sprint race where you’re much slower than a qualifying lap and straight to qually.”
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri said, “It felt weird having a Sprint race, because it’s a race in itself, then preparing again for qualifying. It feels like the race should be the end of the day.”
