At the meeting, there wasn’t an official vote but the teams basically gave their approval for the FIA to move forward in making sure all of the rules are ready for Baku. The team managers have to make sure that the rules are correct and then officially approve them before April 28th-30th.
People have been thinking about changing the way qualifying works in sprints and races, but they decided against it because it would be difficult to get the timing technology ready in time. There was also debate over which day, Friday or Saturday, should be used for sprint and race qualifying, but they figured out that having Saturday as a separate event was the best solution.
On Friday during the race, the grid will be set and there will be no way to change it using the sprint. On Saturday, there will be a shorter version of three-session qualifying where they will split it into 12 minutes, 10 minutes and 8 minutes. This is something that’s still being discussed so exact times are not finalized yet.
Max Verstappen, George Russell and Lando Norris are three great racing drivers of Red Bull Racing RB18, Mercedes W13 and McLaren MCL36 respectively in an amazing photograph taken by Sam Bloxham. Teams want to limit the amount of laps that power units go through during the weekend because of limited amount of tyres.
In order to get ready for big races, there are certain rules that need to be followed. The drivers have a limit of 12 sets of tyres they can use on race days. Additionally, some regulations need to be put in place concerning what happens before the race starts. Basically, if a driver makes any changes to their car’s engine before the main race (like they would on any other sprint weekend) then it will still count as a penalty for that race. If the driver breaks any rules during the sprint, then it will lead to consequences only during the sprint itself rather than negatively affecting the main race.
If a driver causes an accident during the sprint, they might have to serve a special penalty in the next sprint instead of waiting for the big race on the following day. Toto Wolff, who is the boss of Mercedes team, thinks that it’s alright to have two qualifying sessions but only if they can agree on all the details.
“The way things are now, the engine won’t have enough mileage and Pirelli’s doesn’t have enough tires. So we need to figure out how to fix it.”
