Are we sure that the crazy idea of the Sprint Race in Monte Carlo is really such a crazy idea?

In what sense a Sprint Race in Monte Carlo?

“I don’t think an F1 Sprint Race in Monte Carlo can work.” This is what Ross Brawn, former sporting director of Ferrari and team principal of BrawnGP and Mercedes, who in his second life as a Liberty Media executive became one of the fathers of the new format, said back in 2021. At first, the 100 km Saturday sprints were only three and there were numerous requests, so the idea of organizing one in the Principality was not even remotely considered. Then it went to six Sprints a year until the further increase to ten, now planned for the 2027 calendar: and, therefore, even just for purely numerical reasons it has become more likely to extend the format also to the Monaco GP.

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Nevertheless, seeing the capital letter “S” on a red background next to the race box in the Principality was a shock for many: we were not ready. But is it really a bad idea?

F1 Monaco: two races and (above all) two qualifying sessions

If we think about how often the races in Monte Carlo are unspectacular, the answer can only be affirmative: yes, it is a bad idea, although not necessarily worse than the mandatory double pit-stop format or the vain attempts to change the layout of a circuit that offers no room for structural interventions and is therefore destined to remain unchanged, frozen despite the passage of time making it anachronistic. It is by reversing the perspective that the idea regains meaning: every year Formula 1 sacrifices the Sunday show on the altar of Santa Devota, accepting the idea of procession-races that facilitate the post-lunch nap in exchange for the most exciting, tense, unpredictable and fun qualifying sessions of the entire season. The idea behind the novelty is therefore to give up two practice sessions, not so much for one more race, but for one more qualifying session.

In fact, it is also a way to double reward the fastest drivers on the most nerve-wracking flying lap of the championship: you put on a great show already on Friday, with a Saturday of apotheosis between the Sprint start and qualifying, keeping Sunday unchanged, destined to lose yet another little piece of its (already scarce) meaning. It’s worth trying, then judging whether it was a good idea or a wrong choice. After all, it already happened in 2025 with that chaos of the mandatory double pit-stop: something different was tried to revive the Sunday GP and, having verified that the patch was worse than the hole, we witnessed the backtrack with an admission of the mistake.

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F1 like other sports: watch out for the risk of diluting the uniqueness of events

The real gamble, if anything, is once again what increasingly often stains the whole world of sport, especially in recent years: you increase the moments of interest hoping that people spend more time in front of the TV (or, better for organizers, at the sports event location), but you risk diluting and watering down the product, with consequent loss of value of the event as a whole. It happens with football multiplying Champions League matches, with tennis adding more and more tournaments, and obviously with Formula 1: first with the increase of GPs up to the maximum limit of 24 and now with the almost doubling of Sprints.

In the specific case of Monte Carlo, moreover, it must be said that, even with only free practice, Friday is already interesting and followed, also looking at the numbers of fans in the stands. The tension rises lap after lap, with drivers trying to spend as much time as possible on track to get familiar with walls and manhole covers. We could therefore perhaps lose that good anxiety, that knot in the stomach that every fan feels when the green light of Q3 turns on decisive for the most exciting pole position of the year: having two in just two days could be cool, but it could also make the event lose that sense of epicness given by being so much awaited by people, precisely because it is unique and unrepeatable (unrepeatable?) in the season.

A dress rehearsal to do like MotoGP?

It’s a bit like running two 24 Hours of Le Mans, or if for the World Cup or the Olympics we didn’t have to wait four long years (but maybe soon we will even get to that). Who knows if it’s a dress rehearsal to extend Sprints to all race weekends in the future: so far Stefano Domenicali has guaranteed that there would be no more than 12 out of 24, but the perception is that, if the format should work reasonably well on the worst possible track for a double race, there would no longer be many reasons against the hypothesis, whether you like it or not, of doing in F1 what is already done in MotoGP. For now, let’s not put the cart before the horse, let’s enjoy the “gift” of the double qualifying in Monte Carlo (and the “snub” of the double race). There will be time to judge and criticize, or maybe rejoice.

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