Love it or hate it, F1's Sprint format is back for 2022; and while it does arguably improve on its first iteration in 2021, that doesn't mean there can't be improvements...
What's wrong currently?
Let's get this out of the way; I'm not a huge fan of this format. Whenever it happens, it generally reduces track time and creates a processional race that only serves to reduce the chance of action in the full grand prix. Not to mention the constant argument over who is actually on pole, what counts as qualifying, and more asterisks to add to the history books. Realistically there are three main problems I have with the current format.
Weekend schedule effectively makes Saturday practice redundant
Because the whole idea of the sprint format is to add an "action point" to each day of the grand prix weekend, traditional qualifying is on Friday, with the sprint race on the following day. I don't have a major issue with this, although I would prefer to not have qualifying during a work day, but that means the morning practice on Saturday is more or less meaningless. This is compounded by the fact that the cars are put into "parc ferme" after first practice on Friday, meaning teams will not really be able to change their setups or experiment with new developments at all. Saturday practice (FP2 on sprint weekends) ends up just being a session where teams just stick to long runs, which means those who really study the data already know more or less who will be competitive and who will not.
Lack of incentive for close racing
The fact that the sprint race results set the grid for the full Sunday race means that drivers are discouraged from taking too much risk when it comes to wheel-to-wheel racing. Any wrong move and you go from wherever you qualified to essentially last. Ask Pierre Gasly, he's done this twice in four attempts. Also, the races are a weird length, where they are too short to really have degradation from the tires, but long enough that they can just become stale.
Reduces the chance of an exciting grand prix
Take the most recent example of the sprint format; at Imola. The actual sprint race was pretty good, there were overtakes up and down the field, including for the lead, and for the first time probably enough action to make it worthwhile. However, what the sprint does is act as a sort of sieve on the whole field, as cars which are out of position from qualifying tend to revert more to their 'normal' position. Take Perez, Sainz, or Magnussen for example. If we had started Sunday's race with those three in P7, P10, and P4, respectively, we would have had all the overtaking that we saw on Saturday on Sunday instead. Instead, everyone more or less started where they should have, and as a result a large portion of the race was fairly processional.
Trying to please everyone
The difficulty in fixing the sprint race format is that every interested party, be it the FIA, F1, the teams, the drivers, or the fans, wants something different. The teams would probably rather not have them at all, the drivers and fans have a mixed opinion, and F1 itself would do 20 per year if they could. The fans are divided on its merits, too. So, any solution has to realistically not increase the track time by too much, provide entertainment value, and preserve sporting integrity. Realistically, any sprint race format, in my mind has to do the following:
Provide an "action point" on each day of the weekend
Incentivize close racing in both the Saturday and Sunday races
Not increase track time significantly
Allow teams to still experiment with setup on Saturday
The Solution
First of all, traditional qualifying should set the grid for the traditional grand prix. That way pole position is determined by the same criteria at every event, no matter if there is a sprint race or not. Otherwise, the rest of the improvements can more or less be obtained from slight schedule tweaks.
Here's what typical sprint weekends would look like:
Friday
Practice 1 (60 min)
2-hour wait
Traditional Qualifying (Q1-Q2-Q3)
Saturday
Practice 2 (60 min)
2-hour wait
Sprint Qualifying (see below)
30-min wait
Sprint Race (50% distance)
Parc ferme only after Sprint Qualifying
Sunday
Grand Prix
But that just looks the same as it is now...
Almost. A few key differences. First, the cars are not in parc ferme from the middle of Friday, so teams can still make major adjustments until the actual sprint race. However, they will still have to qualify after just one practice session. This will mean that teams which don't hit the ground running might start a bit behind on Sunday, but at least they can compensate, which would lead to more overtaking opportunities. Second is the addition of "Sprint Qualifying" in between Saturday practice and the race, the format of which will be explained below. The third and final difference is that the sprint race is slightly lengthened, from one-third to one-half distance of the full race, to allow for some degradation from the tires and possibly encourage closer racing, or even possibly a pitstop if it would be faster, although not mandatory like it is on Sunday.
OK, what exactly is this "Sprint Qualifying" you keep referencing?
What makes a qualifying session exciting? Fine margins. Risk-reward balance. A culmination of ultimate driver ability. Testing the limits of man and machine. Well, rather than use the standard qualifying sessions to set the grid for the sprint race, let's do something different. Lando Norris and Fernando Alonso, among others, suggested using one-shot qualifying (like F1 did in the past), giving drivers one timed lap to get the best time, no retries or improvements allowed. Sprint qualifying is kind of similar, but with a twist.
Rather than just having one-shot qualifying outright, let's have the drivers begin their lap from a standing start. So, a driver would exit the pits and do a 'formation lap' of sorts (to some kind of predetermined maximum time, for safety and conciseness reasons), line up on pole position, and then lights out, drop the clutch, and go! Drivers will have one shot to get back to the starting line as fast as possible, and will have to judge the car and track conditions on fairly cold tires, as well as make an actually good getaway. Also, let's say you have to do the sprint quali lap on the tires you start the sprint race with. That way, some teams could be incentivized to go for softer compounds to get a better launch, at the expense of degradation in the race itself.
This way, Sprint Qualifying has a little more strategy and variability compared to regular quali, and also requires a slightly different skill set. Plus, each car gets the same amount of sponsor time, which would be good from a commercial aspect. In terms of running order, you could do it either by random draw or by reverse championship running order, so that theoretically the cars are only going faster each time. NASCAR did a similar thing with its qualifying in the past, where the cars ran in reverse order of practice speeds. Personally, I think that this "modified one-shot quali" system would be fascinating to watch, and would only add one extra lap of track running for the teams (although obviously a few extra laps in the sprint race would also add a bit.
A note on points
New for 2022, the sprint races award points down to 8th place, with a simple 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 system. However, F1 should actually use the old standard top-8 system that was used until 2010; where the points are distributed 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1. This would incentivize the fight for the win a little bit, plus it would be a nice little callback.
One last thing...
Realistically, if F1 really wants to commit to the sprint format, it could split it off from the standard championship points system. At the end of the day, many might say the qualifying format is too gimmicky to count towards the full championship. Instead, if Ross Brawn wants six sprint races per year, then you could almost justify having a standalone sprint championship at that point.
However, keep it as part of the full championship. Gone is the double-jeopardy aspect of the sprint race setting the starting grid, so the risk is lower with qualifying in your back pocket. And with the addition of the sprint qualifying, all we are doing is just adding another criteria for determining the best teams and drivers, but still based on performance. That's fine in my book.
If F1 wants to go for a sprint format, go all out. Don't half-ass it like it has been done so far; and don't be afraid to experiment.