F1 News: Martin Brundle Calls For Further Sprint Race Changes After Problematic Austin GP

Significant changes are needed to the Sprint race, according to Martin Brundle.

Former F1 driver and Sky Sports F1 reporter Martin Brundle thinks that the current Sprint race format in Formula 1 needs some major changes after witnessing a number of problems arising from it during the United States Grand Prix weekend. 

Saturday's Sprint in Austin was what most called unexciting as 2023 champion Max Verstappen led the race from the start to the end of the 19-lap race. Many pointed out that the race didn't do much, apart from offering an insight into Sunday's race results.

From just a single practice session, four cars had to start from the pit lane to make changes under parc fermé conditions. Not only that, a lack of practice runs during the weekend led to the disqualification of Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc post the Grand Prix for excessive skid block wear. 

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Brundle wrote in his Sky Sports F1 column that the Sprint race was putting a lot of the teams under pressure during the Grand Prix weekend. He revealed:

"There's no doubt that the Sprint format events put the teams under a lot of pressure and overall, we don't get particularly positive feedback from them.

"With just one practice session before the specification and set-up is locked in by parc fermé rules, especially at a relatively unknown circuit like Losail in Qatar, or a bumpy circuit such as COTA in Austin, this leaves them underprepared, which is far from ideal with such complex cars and that's assuming the first practice session has representative weather and they don't have any reliability issues or accidents.

"And there's the first question: do we want the jeopardy and variability of some teams missing their ultimate pace, or is this wasting the resource and skills of teams and drivers in a 'not very F1' manner?

"We had 20 per cent of the field starting the main Sunday race from the pit lane, in the form of both Aston Martins and both Haas cars, because they were better breaking out of Parc Ferme and trying for a more competitive race set up. And from Friday afternoon onwards, with two qualifying sessions and two races to come, some drivers were consigned to a difficult car for the rest of the weekend.

"This is not ideal or necessary, and while I don't like us to keep messing with the format, we must make some changes for next season and beyond. It's too much of a lottery which has far-reaching consequences, as we would find out several hours after the Sunday GP."