Red Bull Racing driver Max Verstappen expressed concerns over the format of the upcoming sprint race weekend- the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix.
This year, F1 returns to Shanghai International Circuit after a four-year break. The last time Formula 1 was in China was in 2019, and the man who won the race was the seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton.
Formula hasn't visited China under new regulations yet, which means neither of the ten teams on the grid knows what to expect in terms of performance, track conditions, or tire degradation.
It would be fine during a normal weekend with three practice sessions, but the Chinese Grand Prix will be a sprint weekend- which means that drivers will only have one practice session before going into a sprint shootout and sprint race.
One 1-hour-long practice session is very little time for drivers and their teams to explore the track and go through both short and long-run simulations. Verstappen told the media:
"Yeah, it's very smart to do that. I think it's not great, let's say like that, to do that. Because when you have been away from a track for quite a while, I think you never know what you're going to experience, right?"
"So it would have been better to have a normal race weekend there. But on the other hand, it probably spices things up a bit more, and that's maybe what they would like to see."
Spicing things up is exactly what F1 fans want, mainly after yet another weekend of complete Red Bull domination. Nevertheless, Verstappen looks at the driver's and performance perspectives, as he explained:
"But yeah, purely from a driving perspective, performance perspective of the sport, I think it's not the smartest thing to do."
"But yeah, we'll see what we get there. I mean, I always loved driving there. So yeah, hopefully we can hit the ground running as well as we can, and hopefully we don't need to fine-tune too many things on the car."
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