Drivers torn on decision to make Chinese GP a Sprint weekend

Max Verstappen is one of many drivers who believe it’s not the best move from Formula 1 to make the Chinese Grand Prix a Sprint weekend, given the five-year gap in races at the venue. Shanghai was last on the calendar in 2019 (pictured above), prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. F1’s return to China will be the first Sprint event of the season, meaning teams and drivers have just one practice session on Friday morning to re-acquaint themselves with the circuit before heading into the four competitive sessions starting with the Sprint Shootout. “I think it’s not great, let’s say like that, to do that,” Verstappen said. “Because when you have been away from a track for quite a while, I think you never know what you’re going to experience. So it would have been better to have a normal race weekend there. “On the other hand, it probably spices things up a bit more, and that’s maybe what they would like to see. But purely from a driving perspective, performance perspective of the sport, I think it’s not the smartest thing to do. “We’ll see what we get there. I always loved driving there, so hopefully we can hit the ground running and we don’t need to fine-tune too many things on the car.” Verstappen was already racing for Red Bull when he last drove at the Shanghai International Circuit, whereas Sergio Perez says he has even more learning to do given he was a Racing Point driver when the race was last held. “I just hope that there are no issues with the track — with any drain holes, any issues like that,” Perez said. “That will just put us out of sync. I think for the show, probably it’s a good thing. But I think from the preparation side, it’s going to be really hard because I’ve never raced there, for example, with Red Bull so it’s going to be quite a lot to do in a single practice.” Carlos Sainz agreed with the Red Bull drivers that the Sprint decision could provide more unpredictability, but feels it could lead to some unforeseen issues for teams when trying to get their setups right from both a performance and a legality standpoint. “I think there’s two different topics,” Sainz said. “China as a race circuit is a great one — it’s one of our favorite ones. It’s just a great racing track that offers a good possibility to overtake, so a Sprint makes sense to have it there. “At the same time, it’s what we said in the drivers’ briefing — we said to the FIA and Formula 1, with these kind of cars to go to a track with one hour of practice and straight into qualifying, with the regulations that they give us, with the plank wear and things like this, and how tricky one bump could make the car, I think it’s not a good choice to choose to put the Sprint after four or five years’ absence. “We also heard there’s been resurfacing going on, so Istanbul 2.0 maybe on the cards! I hope not. So it just shows the uncertainty. Maybe for you guys at home it’s exciting, but for engineers and drivers, it’s something that in my opinion, we shouldn’t take the risk and have a normal weekend.”