The United States Grand Prix, which saw two teams remove their cars from the grid and two drivers disqualified, has spurred discussion about the current parc ferme regulations in Formula 1.
Christian Horner, the team principal for Red Bull, has criticized the current Formula 1 regulations pertaining to sprint races.
The controversy surrounding the parc ferme rules and the sprint race damaged the US Grand Prix. Not happy with their respective setups, Haas and Aston Martin both pulled their cars off the grid at the Grand Prix.
After the one practice hour and Friday’s qualifying, teams are not permitted to make any changes to their cars, which is known as parc ferme. Teams believed that the excessive wear on the planks of Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes and Charles Leclerc of Ferrari was a direct result of the sprint, and as a result, both drivers were disqualified from the race.
Red Bull were not negatively impacted by the rules, with Max Verstappen winning his 15th race of the season. But Horner gave an impassioned take on the rules ahead of Sunday’s Mexican Grand Prix.
“For me, parc ferme is a bit of a joke. You have one session to set your car up, and then the engineers may as well go home at that point,” he told reporters in Mexico. “So, that needs looking at and that I’m sure was a contributing factor to the ride height issues of the teams that fell foul of the regulations. Effectively, it’s just a long run on a sprint race. And there’s no real jeopardy to it, there’s no real incentive behind it.”
He added: “We should really go to the fans and get their feedback as well. What is it that they want? I think it’d be interesting to look at the data at the end of the year of how popular the sprint race has been because, at the end of the day, it’s all about the fans.
“The reason we do sprint races is to try and provide more entertainment to create a more attractive event. We have to be honest with ourselves at the end of the year when we’ve got all the samples of the sprint races and say: ‘OK, what can we do better? What can be learned? And how can we improve the spectacle?’ If the drivers enjoy it and find it rewarding, and the teams find it rewarding, then I think the fans ultimately will.”
Even though Verstappen has not personally been impacted by the Austin regulations, he still disapproves of them. “Like I’ve always said: ‘Why?'” he said. Why is it necessary for us to attempt invention? Our product functions provided that the cars remain competitive and the regulations are maintained over an extended period of time. Why do we create new things all the time?
“To say, ‘Oh, we need to come up with something,’ almost sounds crazy. Simply leave it alone. Why is it that we must now think of new ways to try to make it entertaining? You don’t need a Sprint format or weekend if you have a competitive race with cars close to one another.
Leave a Reply