Fernando Alonso assesses that the tire allocation of the Formula 1 should be increased for sprint races, as he feels the current rules make it “a game of who can run the least” in training.
The sprint format means teams only have one free practice session to prepare their cars for the remainder of the weekend.
In FP1 in China, the first sprint weekend of the 2024 season, Alonso’s Aston Martin teammate Lance Stroll led a session in which teams focused on long runs before launching a series of qualifying simulations at the end.
The tire allocation for sprint events is reduced by an overall set, from 13 to 12, with the split into two sets of hard, three sets of medium and eight sets of soft, to four medium and six soft, plus the usual two hard.
Fernando Alonso said after the main race in Shanghai that “I think more tires will be good because in FP1 it’s a game of who can run less and who uses fewer sets of tires” before criticizing the penalty he received for colliding with Carlos Sainz in the first race last weekend.
“So it’s a shame for the fans,” he added. “And then the sprint, if they want it for the show and for overtaking and you don’t let them race, it’s better not to race.”
Alonso also said that next weekend’s sprint weekend in Miami will be “another one where the tires will be unknown”.
He continued: “So ideally you wouldn’t race in FP1 to keep all the tires alive and you wouldn’t race the sprint race to save penalty points on your license.
“Obviously we won’t do that because we need to learn something from the car in Miami. But we still need to think, the sprint needs more adjustments.”
Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin F1 Team, in the garage
Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images
Mercedes driver George Russell said he “liked” the adjusted sprint format for 2024, with parc fermé being opened after the sprint race, before GP qualifying, to allow teams to make setup adjustments. but he agreed with Alonso on the idea of increasing the number of tires.
“I like this format,” Russell said. “I think maybe the only thing that could be improved would be to change the tire rules for practice.
“Maybe give everyone the same set of tires or number of tires in practice because that shouldn’t influence the rest of your weekend based on what you do in practice.
“So that would be my only thought, otherwise I was very happy with it.”
In the only two FP1 sessions held in 2024 that did not have a red flag interruption – Bahrain and Jeddah, the total number of laps recorded were 422 and 471, respectively.
In China, the total was 453 – despite the loss of time due to the shutdown following the first grass fire of the weekend.
