F1 sprint races will be reduced to three in 2022

Formula 1 owner Liberty Media last year ran the program of small sprint races held on the Saturday (29/01) of the UK, Italy (Monza) and Brazil meetings and determined the starting order of its main GP on Sunday (06/06). /2).

Given its success and estimating that six sprint races would generate an additional $10 million in commercial revenue in 2022, Liberty announced that the new three-day sprint race structure would be extended to include the double GP of the year: in Bahrain, Imola , Canada, Austria, Netherlands and Brazil.

F1 offered each team $500,000 for the first five sprint races of the year and $150,000 for the sixth. That’s a total of $2.65 million.

However, apart from the increased revenue of the teams, he did not increase the season limit for each team, which judging from last year’s data there was no need to do so – as not many accidents happened and there was no increased loss cost for the former.

Seven of the 10 sports teams accepted Liberty’s offer, but the richest three (Mercedes, Red Bull, Ferrari) made the six sprints a condition of the $5 million budget increase – something McLaren CEO Jacques Brown called “ridiculous.” “ referred to.

This freezes negotiations for the year’s six sprints, as approval from eight teams was required to pass. And since Liberty, the FIA ​​​​and the majority of the teams will not support the increase in the budget limit, the former offered the teams the alternative proposal of the event only 3 sprints in 2022, which is to be discussed at the Motorsport World Council on February 14th.

In the longer term, F1 would like to increase the number of sprint races to six, but until then it shows understanding for this year’s major challenge for teams to understand and further develop their brand new cars that have emerged from this year’s radically changed regulations.