F1 to make MAJOR change to 2024 race weekends after Lewis Hamilton’s ‘pointless’ comment and sarcastic Verstappen jibe
F1 SPRINTS are set to be changed in 2024 in order to make race weekends easier to follow.
The format will be refreshed for the new season after complaints from the likes of Lewis Hamilton this year.
It was confirmed on Friday that the Sporting Advisory Committee will present their final proposal to the F1 Commission in January.
An FIA statement read: “The Commission gave overall support for an update to the sprint format for 2024 to further rationalise the weekend by separating Sprint activities from those for the Grand Prix.
“The final calendar for the 2024 sprint events will be published in the coming weeks.”
Six rounds of this season’s calendar have been sprint weekends, including in Qatar as Max Verstappen clinched his third world title on a Saturday.
The current format sees qualifying for the grand prix held on a Friday, with the sprint qualifying and race taking place on Saturday.
Teams have discussed moving sprint qualifying to Friday instead, with the 100km race held on Saturday morning before GP qualifying.
The planned changes come after Hamilton had slammed the sprint races at the Austrian GP in July after qualifying in 18th.
“Sprint race doesn’t really matter anyways,” he admitted. “So today [I’ll] just have some fun from the back and it is what it is.
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“I don’t really feel any way about it to be honest. I wish I was still out there, but not today.
“There’s nothing really to say. Just that we will focus on our job today and could’ve easily been much further up there, but yeah, I’ll just have a bit of fun at the back.”
He has an opposing view to Verstappen, who sarcastically said: “Love it. It’s fantastic!” after winning the sprint race at last month’s United States GP.
During the same press conference, Hamilton later quipped: “Sounds like you’re a bit bored,” in response to Verstappen’s honest views on the sprints.
This prompted Verstappen to add: “I’m not bored but if I would be a fan, I would just be disappointed because then you more or less know about the picture.
“If nothing crazy happens, you know what’s going to happen tomorrow so I find that a bit…
“It takes away that magic of waking up on a Sunday morning or whatever, Sunday afternoon, and you turn on the TV and you’ve had qualifying but you’re not sure which car is going to be quickest in most of the years and yeah, it takes that magic away, I find.”