F1 news: Lando Norris stands with Max Verstappen on sprint race criticism
- Heinrich Griessel
- 9 November 2022
Lando Norris has backed Max Verstappen's call for Formula 1 to stick to Sunday races, especially at tracks such as Interlagos.
The Brazilian circuit plays host to the penultimate round of the 2022 championship where the final sprint race of the season will also be held.
That means instead of Friday's second practice, the drivers will jump into qualifying and in the traditional qualifying slot on Saturday, there'll be a 100km sprint race that will set the grid for Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix.
Norris agrees with Verstappen's recent comments that Formula 1 to "stick" to Sunday races as the sprint events are "not what a race should be about".
"Growing up, always having qualifying and then a race, that's always what I've known Formula 1 to be," GPFans quotes the McLaren driver as having said.
"So in a way, I'm with Max on that.
"I love just to build up the pressure of just having qualifying and one race with nothing coming between, that's just the structure of it."
But, having said that, the Briton conceded that the impact of a sprint race is also determined by the nature of the circuit.
"At the correct tracks," he added, "I also don't mind it.
"So when it was in Austria or Monza, tracks you can actually race on. Interlagos, reasonably, not the easiest track for most people to race on."
Last season, though, Lewis Hamilton showed what can be achieved in a sprint race weekend.
He lined up P20 on the Interlagos sprint grid after his DRS was found to be 2mm too wide and raced his way to fifth in the 24 laps.
Despite another five-place penalty on the Sunday for taking on a new ICE, he took the race win by 10.5s ahead of Verstappen.
But as Norris points out, "that's Lewis in a Mercedes.
"I don't think it's for everyone. It's not as simple as saying 'Lewis did this or that'.
"You have to look at the whole grid, the whole field and there are obvious ones which everyone races at and can have good fun in and, if you want to put on a better show which is what the whole point of it is, then I understand it.
"But I like Formula 1 how it is, just because I've grown up watching that, then being part of it. Sometimes I don't like change. I also don't mind it."
