Zak Brown and Toto Wolff reveal the truth behind the cancellation of three Sprint Races in the 2022 Formula 1 season

Fomrula 1 is on a rise and the FIA are putting in maximum effort for the growth of the sport. One such effort introduced last year was the Sprint Race format. This format witnessed the Qualifying session being hosted on Friday, with a 100 km sprint race on Saturday and ending the weekend with the Grand Prix on Sunday. It was introduced to have the maximum fan engagement throughout a Formula 1 weekend.

The 2021 season hosted 3 sprint races throughout the year. The FIA learnt from the feedback it collected from the teams on the grid and made various tweaks to the format, coming into 2022. The head of Formula 1 listed six sprint race weekends this year, but were unable to execute it in a year dictated by a cost cap. Mclaren CEO, Zak brown and Mercedes boss, Toto Wolff revealed the reason behind the cancellation.

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“FIA wanted to do some more homework” Opines Zak Brown

Brown commented on the situation by saying “We tried to get six sprint races off last year, which obviously didn’t happen for this year. I think all the teams voted in favour of the six sprint races, now that we’ve seen the data, which tells us it does create more fan awareness. And that’s what I think is most important in growing the sport, is how do our fans respond when we try new activities? Mohammed [Ben Sulayem, FIA president] voiced he just wanted to do some more homework.”

Mercedes team principal, Toto Wolff further added “I’m sure that between Stefano [Domenicali, F1 CEO] and Mohammed, we’re going to come to a resolution. For Mohammed, it was important to hear the FIA’s members’ opinion, and he wasn’t against it, just that he needed more time for that decision.”

The sprint race format has definitely helped the sport attract new audience. The FIA are making constant efforts to evolve the format into a perfect fit for Formula 1. The feedback from each constructor and driver on the grid will continue to play a major role in this developing process.

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