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Christian Horner has claimed that the rule that means cars are in parc ferme conditions after FP1 during sprint weekends is \u2018a joke\u2019. The Red Bull team principal has followed in the footsteps of paddock rival Toto Wolff in questioning the long-term future of sprint races.<\/p>\n
Questions were raised about the long-term viability of the sprint race experiment, at least in its current guise, after four cars were forced to start from the pit lane for the Grand Prix in Austin last time out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To make matters worse, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc\u2019s disqualifications were partially attributed to the restrictions placed on the teams during sprint weekends. Both Mercedes and Ferrari explained that more practice sessions would have likely prevented the set-up mishaps that led to their technical breaches.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Discussing the talking points from sprint weekends in Qatar and Texas, Horner said: \u201cFor me, parc ferm\u00e9 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,\u201d he told the media in Mexico.<\/p>\n
Click here to join our WhatsApp community to be the first to receive breaking and exclusive F1 news.<\/strong><\/p>\n Don’t miss… <\/strong> Lewis Hamilton puzzled as Mercedes dig highlights worrying issue for Toto Wolff[LATEST] <\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cSo, that needs looking at and that I\u2019m sure was a contributing factor to the ride height issues of the teams that fell foul of the regulations. Effectively, it\u2019s just a long run on a Sprint race. And there\u2019s no real jeopardy to it, there\u2019s no real incentive behind it.\u201d<\/p>\n Horner also called on F1 to gauge fan opinion on sprint races, adding: \u201cI think it\u2019d 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\u2019s all about the fans.<\/p>\n \u201cThe 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\u2019ve got all the samples of the sprint races and say: \u2018Okay, what can we do better? What can be learned? And how can we improve the spectacle?’\u201d<\/p>\n More F1… <\/strong>
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