F1 teams back 10-car non-championship sprint race for rookies at end of season · RaceFans

Plans for a post-season sprint race for rookies are moving closer to becoming a reality, Formula 1 team bosses say.

The concept was originally mooted for 2025 but Red Bull team principal Christian Horner said momentum is growing for the race to take place this year following the post-season test at Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi.

“It’s like all things in life, if you want it to happen, you make it happen,” said Horner. “I think there was a clear directive to let’s get the job done for this year. So obviously that puts pressure on the Sporting Working Groups and the various team managers to work with the FIA to come up with a set of regulations.”

Horner said the event is likely to take place in a single day and run to the same regulations used for Formula 1’s sprint races.

“I think mainly adopting sprint regs and so on it’s eminently do-able,” he said. “It doesn’t need to be overly complicated.”

Teams would enter just one car instead of two, said Horner, meaning the grid would contain just 10 cars. The qualifying session would therefore need to be adjusted as the current SQ1 and SQ2 phases would become meaningless.

“It’s just going to be a single car from each team rather than two cars,” he explained. “Effectively you’re just using the mileage in a different way as opposed to just performing during a test day.

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“So I think the event will take place all in one day: Qualifying and then you put on another sprint race.”

It would be the 31st F1 race in what has already been the longest-ever F1 season, featuring 24 rounds plus six sprint races. However Horner believes it would be a worthwhile replacement for the regular young drivers’ test.

“It’s something that I tabled at the last couple of Formula 1 Commissions because I think it’s great for the young drivers,” said Horner.

“The problem with some of the rookie tests is they all get used for testing. You never know are they running on 50 kilos, 70 kilos, 30 kilos of fuel, what engine motor are they going? You don’t really know how the opposition is doing.

“So I think this, a non-championship race for the junior drivers, is a fantastic opportunity. It comes at the end of a busy season, but opposed to just running around burning fuel and tyres and only the teams that are running those drivers knowing whether they’re doing a good job or not, to give potentially 10 rookies the opportunity of jumping in the current cars and having the equivalent of a sprint race, I think is fantastic.”

Among the drivers potentially eligible to participate are Jack Doohan, who will make his F1 debut for Alpine next year, Andrea Kimi Antonelli who will do the same at Mercedes and his Formula 2 team mate Oliver Bearman who is joining Haas.

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Haas team principal Ayao Komatsu also supports the idea of a non-championship race for rookies. “I think it’s great,” he said. “The post-season test, if you don’t do things like that, you are just in a tyre test. So I think that adds value to the day and makes it more exciting and an opportunity to put a young driver in the car.

“These days it’s such a rare opportunity for young drivers to get in a current Formula 1 car so I think it’s very interesting move.”