Why does Mercedes refuse the proposed reverse grid sprint races?
General
- GPblog.com
The reverse starting grid has been put on the back burner for the time being, as Mercedes and allegedly Racing Point do not yet have a good feeling about this qualifying format. Marc Priestley is looking at the possibilities.
Now that Formula 1 has the unique opportunity to do two race weekends on the same circuit, the leadership wants to try something different. The standard qualifying session can be different and races with a reverse start order should offer a solution, but in order to adjust something like this at short notice, you need permission from all teams.
Mercedes is at odds
As usual this is not the case in Formula 1, because this time it's Mercedes that bothers. Not very strange, because the team that has always been the fastest in recent years would of course be crazy to vote with a proposal that would force them to start from the back on Sunday. Racing Point agrees, but that's probably only because of the ties with Mercedes, because Racing Point itself could have an advantage.
In his new video Priestley discusses the possibility of turning a qualifying session into a kind of sprint race in Formula 1. What kind of results will this produce and why does Mercedes refuse to participate?