sprints can sometimes give more exciting Sundays.
but mostly don't
As someone who works a lot at weekends, Sprints are just a chore to drudge through that make following the sport in an already bloated calendar even more difficult to find the time to view and follow. As there has never been an attempt to make the Sprints be worth watching (reverse grids etc), they often end up as dead rubbers where drivers don't push for the overtake because they have qualifying 2 hours later. The sport works best as a long strategic race, and every generation of cars and tyres just doesn't work for short races. FP sessions can be missed if you're not able to watch them, Sprints require viewing despite their obvious failures.
Friday qualifying at Monaco is not going to be as exciting as everyone thinks. Without the time to get up to speed before going flat-out, you'll just have more crashes and less on-the-limit laps as it is a track where more than any even the best drivers in the world need time to get into the flow of. That is what Monaco is GOOD and unremovable for and taking it away and giving us another processional Sprint 2 hours before proper quali tells us nothing and just detracts from both qualifying sessions. Add to that the 1-tyre rule for Sprint Quali will make the drivers even more cautious on Friday when a good old FP session would give the drivers the necessary track time to make Saturday qualifying as glorious as it always is.
We also definitely don't need the first race of the season to be a dry dirge on Saturday morning before we have had proper quali. The first race of the season is supposed to be a special moment, the first time everyone can find out the pace of all cars.
More races and the removal of FP sessions makes the sport even more rookie unfriendly. It restricts teams down to 14 races to rattle through their friday FP drivers, while anyone who is a genuine rookie has less track time to get up to speed against other drivers who have been around these tracks in F1 before. Whoever is making their debut in Bahrain next year is going to have an awful weekend because they're dropped straight into racing.
A good case study is that the BTCC has become a nightmare for teams and inexperienced drivers this year with the removal of and FP session, the tiny qualifying session and an extra qualifying race added to the weekend. This format suits experienced drivers, increases damage costs for everyone and doesn't add enough as there aren't enough points given for shorter races to make overtakes in the last few laps worth the risk. F1 risks becoming even more of a closed shop than ever, especially in the age of ultra judgy teams and fans in terms of rookie development. New drivers learn more from an FP session than they do in a quali session where they have only 3 runs because they've been knocked out in Q1 because they haven't had a chance to try multiple setups, learn lines or simply because they spun into the gravel after 15 minutes into FP1.
Sprints mean nothing and are completely detrimental whenever anything big happens in them due to the lack of impact. 2025 USA was the prime example. There you had Piastri and Norris both collide and were taken out on Lap 1 of the Sprint. What would have been a major talking point and one with heavy implications was all forgotten about and didn't matter less than 3 hours later when proper quali happened. Championship rival Verstappen went away to win the Sprint, but in the end could only get 8 points up on his Championship rivals. Losing proper championship defining moments to some crappy 20 minute drive around on Saturday morning shows how just unimpactful and inconsequential any of the events that happen in them are.
Sprints are bad because they don't do anything interesting with them. There's now 34 races next season, 14 too many for the calendar. This is just a pathetic money grab for the detriment of the sport overall.
