Murray Walker passed away, aged 97. IndyCar will have an iRacing series after all. Formula One did some testing. Red Bull has the most confidence. Mercedes could be shaky. McLaren looks like the McLaren of old. Aston Martin might already be a letdown. MotoGP did some testing. Jack Miller broke the Losail track record. Yamaha was strong. Álex Márquez fractured his foot. Marc Márquez is pushing to run the first race of the season. Martin Truex, Jr. won the NASCAR Cup race from Phenix, making it five different winners in five races to starts the season and six different winners in the last six races dating back to last season. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
Sprint!
For a series rigid to change, Formula One does like to bring up a lot of potential changes and ahead of the 2021 season we could see another attempt to mix up the race weekend.
The plan is to trial a sprint race on Saturday at a few races. Originally, Montreal, Monza and Interlagos were test locations, but it sounds like Silverstone could replace Montreal or become a fourth sprint race round. Knockout qualifying would take place on Friday in place of second free practice, but that would set the grid for the sprint race on Saturday. The sprint race would be a third distance of the grand prix and a few drivers would be awarded points. Sprint race points have not been announced but the rumors range from the top eight finishers scoring half points, 12-9-7-6-5-4-2-1, or only the top three receiving points, declining 3-2-1. The finishing order of the Saturday race would set the grid for the grand prix on Sunday.
While Formula One has been playing around with trying new things, this is a massive leap for the series. It has fiddled with qualifying with the currently knockout format intact for the last 15 years. There was an attempted alteration in 2016 when the slowest driver was eliminated every 90 seconds in a qualifying round. That was dropped after two races.
During the turbo-hybrid era, when three teams have had a firm stranglehold on the top spots and Mercedes has led the way, there has been an increased push to try something different just to add some variance to the races. With the schedule creeping toward two-dozen races, going through the same motions that many times from the middle of March through the start of December leaves little to be excited about. It becomes rinse, wash, repeat before we even make it to the first race of summer.
The most memorable races last year were the ones where the field was mixed up, most notably Monza and the Sakhir Grand Prix on the Bahrain outer circuit. Lewis Hamilton was shuffled to the back at Monza after a penalty and he had to climb from outside the top 15 with half the race in the bag. Meanwhile, you ended up with Pierre Gasly victorious for AlphaTauri ahead of a McLaren and a Racing Point with both Ferraris out of the race and both Red Bulls woefully behind.
At Sakhir, Hamilton was unable to compete due to contracting COVID-19. Mercedes still dominated with George Russell moving over from Williams, but when Mercedes fitted the wrong tires on Russell's car, it forced him to the back. Russell made a charge only to suffer a tire puncture, again sending him in the wrong direction. It set up Sergio Pérez for a stunning victory with Racing Point ahead of Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Carlos Sainz, Jr. and Daniel Ricciardo. We also had Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc take each out on lap one.
Of course, you cannot penalize the Mercedes drivers and cause collisions between a Red Bull and a Ferrari in every race just to mix it up, but you can add additional barriers that could trip up the top teams and bring them back to the rest of the field.
Unfortunately, I do not see the proposed sprint race as a potential barrier to the teams. In fact, I see a sprint race being something that would only make Formula One's rich teams even richer.
The sprint race would effectively become Formula One's version of stage racing we see in NASCAR. When NASCAR added stage racing and started giving out points at two random points in the race to the teams running in the top ten many talking heads said it would be great and give the little teams a chance to compete with the top teams. Except most of those little teams were not running in the top ten, which meant they didn't score any points and the teams that were already dominating races and winning races with 220 of 334 laps led still won those races but now earned 15-20 more points because of how dominant there day was overall. It didn't bring the field closer together but provided more insurance to the top teams.
Using the NASCAR Cup Series regular season as the example, through 26 races, the average gap from first to tenth since stage racing was introduced in 2017 is 316.75 points. The largest gap was 347 points in 2020 and the smallest gap was 276 points in 2019. From 2011-2016, the average gap from first to tenth after 26 races was 146.833 points. The smallest gap was 91 points in 2013 and the largest gap was 221 points in 2015, but 2015 was the only season with a gap above 200 points. Stage racing has done everything but tighten up the field.
This will happen in Formula One. A third distance isn't even long enough for pit stops. Mercedes will qualify on the front row, run 14-20 laps, finish 1-2 and Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas will have an extra few points or as many as nine to 12 more points before we even reach Sunday. Then they will lineup first and second again for the grand prix, pull away over 60-70 laps and instead of leaving a race weekend with at most 26 points for a race victory and at most 44 points to the constructor for a 1-2, a driver could leave with possibly 38 points for sweeping the races (though it hasn't been mentioned if fastest lap in the sprint race would earn a point. It that case it could be as high as 39 points), and a constructor could leave with a maximum of 65 points from one race weekend.
Mercedes and Ferrari are actually pushing for sprint races because they likely see the math and realize it could be in their best interest to score more points.
While Mercedes and Ferrari are ready to fill their coffers, there has been an idea that is a slight alteration to the sprint race format that has been out there for some time. It has received push back and that is a reverse grid race on Saturday. Instead of having a qualifying session, the field would lineup in reverse order of the World Drivers' Championship standings, run a race at a third distance of a grand prix and the result of that race would set the grid on Sunday.
The biggest complaint is a reverse grid race would be too gimmicky for Formula One and really be a detriment to the top teams. I would argue if you are going to make a change you mind as well make it completely different from the status quo.
The proposed sprint race format is just extending the grand prix by 33.333% and awarding more points to the top teams. After Saturday, the top teams will still be starting at the front of the field on Sunday. Sprint races have more a chance of driving potential viewers away from watching the grand prix on Sunday because if people have just spent a third of a race, about 40 minutes watching Mercedes run away from the field, why would they tune in to see 65 more laps of that over about two hours the next day?
Whatever change is made should be done to make sure people will tune in on Sunday. The proposed sprint race format does not do that, but a reverse grid race has more potential. On Saturday, you would have to watch to see where each driver settles out on the grid. Can Lewis Hamilton make it from 20th into the top ten? Can Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc keep Hamilton behind them? Could the Alfa Romeos hang on at the front? There is plenty to watch for and when the race is over, you are heading into Sunday wondering if Hamilton, Verstappen and Leclerc can make it from their starting position, whether that is fifth, eighth or 12th, to the front and compete for a victory and you are wondering if a Alfa Romeo or a Williams could hold on and potentially pull out some points.
It would be different from what we have now, but not necessarily worse, and I think far from being worse. I get the reservations to change and we all enjoy the knockout qualifying format. The problem isn't the knockout qualifying format, but for the better part of a decade now Formula One has been a little stale. Not every race can be an all-time legendary event, but too often it has felt routine and we can pencil down the finishing order for the grand prix on the Thursday night prior to the race weekend and end up correct.
There are procedural elements that have to be ironed out for either sprint race or reverse grid race. Looking at the sprint race format, the main question is where are grid penalties applied, the sprint race or the grand prix? Qualifying will set the grid for the sprint race. It would make sense for penalties to be applied there. What incentive would a team have for trying in the sprint race if grid penalties were just going to send it to the rear of the grid for Sunday? But how effective is the penalty if the punishment goes toward the sprint race? And then there is the fact that you can't punish a team twice, giving out grid penalties for both races. That is overkill.
And then there is the record book. Who is considered the pole-sitter? Are there two pole-sitters? I actually believe there is a simple solution for the sprint race format. Pole position goes to the fastest driver at the end of Q3 on Friday and then you have a new statistical category for sprint race victories. Sprint victories stand on their own. They are not grand prix victories. We don't have to worry about having a dozen drivers breaking the century mark and knocking Michael Schumacher down to 13th all-time in victories before the end of this decade.
As for reverse grid races, since there would be no qualifying session, the winner of that race is credited with pole position. The winner would start on pole position after all. That reverse grid race would be the qualifying session, but instead of qualifying coming down to individual lap times, it would come down to a finishing result. Because this is what would set the grid, it would not need to award points. The reward would be the starting position earned.
Qualifying has evolved. We have had one-hour sessions evolve into to single-lap qualifying, which led to the current knockout format. We don't know what the record book would look like if there was the knockout format in the age of Senna and Prost and we don't know how the record book would look if Hamilton and Vettel had to rely on only one flying lap. It would be just another change, albeit one of the larger shifts.
We need to be flexible to change but remain critical about every proposition. If any changes are made, Formula One should make it accentuates the grand prix on Sunday. The grand prix is still the main event. It should be what is remembered when the weekend is over and draw the biggest crowd. Whatever happens on Friday and Saturday should be building to Sunday. Whatever happens on Friday and Saturday should make people want to tune in on Sunday. Formula One cannot afford to turn people away from Sunday because of what was seen on Saturday.
The difference this time around is Formula One's biggest two teams are behind this change. The plan is for a trial this year, but it feels like we are awaiting a greater change in the very near future.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about Martin Truex, Jr., but did you know...
Austin Cindric won the NASCAR Grand National Series race from Phoenix, his second victory of the season.
Cooper Webb won the Supercross race from Arlington, his fourth victory of the season.
Coming Up This Weekend
A 12 Hours of Sebring in March.
NASCAR will be in Atlanta.
Supercross has two more races in Arlington, one on Tuesday and one on Saturday.
Supercars has a round at Sandown in place of the postponed Albert Park round.
