The revised rules have been agreed with the teams and will be formally ratified next week before being used in Azerbaijan, which hosts the first of six sprint races this season.

Friday will run in the familiar sprint format, with FP1 followed by qualifying, but Sunday’s main event will be based on grid positions.

In lieu of FP2, a shorter version of qualifying will be held on Saturday to determine grid positions for the sprint later in the day.

Many drivers said they liked the idea of ​​separating the two events so that accidents during the sprint qualifying session or the sprint itself would not affect their participation in the gand prix.

“I think so,” said Charles Leclerc when asked by Autosport if it was a good idea. “I mean we can take more risks in sprint qualifying without wasting your whole weekend. So that’s good.”

“Obviously, you need to find a way to be fair, but it’s confusing things,” Valtteri Bottas said. “You’re definitely calculating risk in a sprint. So that’s a good point. Maybe it could be something.”

Nyck De Vries agrees that drivers can take more risks when they know Sunday’s race will not be affected.

“I think it’s a good thing that they have separated the results of the sprint race from the starting line of the grand prix,” said the Dutchman.

“Because it doesn’t really motivate racing because especially the guys up front don’t want to take risks. People want to see a show, so I think it’s a good decision.”

Nyck de Vries happy with switch to independent sprint

Photography: Red Bull Content Pool

Nico Hulkenberg admitted that in the previous format, Saturday’s FP2 meeting was basically redundant.

“There’s always a risk reward,” the Haas driver said. “Obviously, you never want to damage the car. There are points in the sprint.

“But it’s actually not a bad idea, because a Saturday morning meeting is kind of pointless, isn’t it?”

Carlos Sainz emphasized that the GPDA has been pushing to separate sprints and grand prix races in an attempt to generate more action.

“If F1 and the FIA ​​want better performance, we’re asking them to go in that direction,” he said. “They asked us. We said we needed the sprint not counting (for the grand prix grid).

“So I’m glad they’ve embraced our feedback, it should be the right direction and an exciting weekend.”