Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali does not seem to fully share Flavio Briatore’s ambitions for the sprint races. The Alpine boss is a fan of the sprint format and even advocated for a sprint session during every Grand Prix weekend. However, for Domenicali, this seems to go too far: ‘Although we will organize more sprint races next year’.
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Sprint races have been a fixed feature on the Formula 1 calendar since 2021. In the first year, the premier class held a shortened race during three Grand Prix weekends, but this number has now increased to six. Alpine advisor Flavio Briatore is a fan of the new format. “If it were up to me, I would organize them every weekend, because we need to offer the spectators something extra,” the boss said in an interview with The Race.
According to Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali, the latter is very ambitious, but he certainly wants to organize more than the current six sprint weekends. “Sprint races are an initiative that primarily arose because we wanted to organize something that would create action on the circuit,” the Italian boss said during a Liberty Media meeting for investors.
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Domenicali then confirmed that from 2027 there will be more sprint weekends on the calendar: Yes, next year we will organize more sprint races. We will announce exactly how many when the calendar is released.”
Scarcity
However, the Italian does not seem to intend to organize a sprint every Grand Prix weekend, as Briatore proposed. “The principle is very simple,” he further explained. “This is of course also an opportunity to increase the revenue stream. It gives us the possibility to close new deals, as we have already seen, and this direction is our future. We want to approach this the right way, because that way we can also ensure that scarcity continues to create added value.”
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