F1 rejects sprint races but Carey will “continue to look at ideas” with no gimmicks allowed
While the Circus failed to reach unanimity for a reverse grid race qualifying, Carey is looking for new formats.
The Circus is going through a period of major changes as the pandemic shattered the plan of the 2020 season as it was conceived before. Such an unpredictable situation, though, is also opening the way to a new conception of the sport, which could involve some news that may take it to a more modern version of Formula 1.
Formula 1 chairman Chase Carey proposed to adopt a reverse grid race qualifying borrowing the format from F2 and F3 but this idea did not reach an unanimously approval from the different teams. The only one who seemed positive in using such qualifying format was Horner from Red Bull. Indeed, he thought this 2020 could be the only change to try sprint races in the major formula. This led to further search for new formats to be applied in 2020. Carey, in fact, stated that he is going to look for other resolutions that will not be “gimmicks”.
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“We’ve had discussions in the past couple of years about should we look at ways to make some changes that honour the sport, respect what has made the sport great but we think would be changes that would enhance the experience for fans,” said Carey in a video interview conducted by F1. We’ve talked about a couple in the coronavirus context of these two [double-header] races. At this point we’ve had one that’s been publicised about a reverse grid that not all teams were comfortable with, and making changes in this short timeframe requires unanimity of support."
Carey goes on explaining the goods and the bad of facing changes during this time with a short time to adapt them: "We’re changing almost real time inside the season, but we’ll continue to look at ideas. We want to make sure they’re not gimmicks. It’s a great sport with great history, great heroes, great stars, incredibly talented drivers and other individuals so we want to respect everything to a degree but we want to make sure that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t look at ways to make some changes.”
“To some degree, - he added -this season being unique gives a little bit more opportunity to try something that I don’t think we would do unless we thought it was a real possibility to add something to the race.
“I think we always want to be challenging ourselves and [looking at whether] there other things we can do to make the sport better.”
