Red Bull still hold all the cards going into this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix but for their team principal, Christian Horner, it is the next round in Azerbaijan that is of greater concern. In Melbourne Horner bluntly dismissed plans to hold a sprint race in Baku as “ludicrous” given the risk of cars crashing on the high-speed, street circuit.
At Albert Park Red Bull are on a roll that for now at least looks to be unstoppable, with a pair of one-two victories in the opening two meetings, their drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez taking one win each. Verstappen leads his teammate by one point in the drivers’ championship.
Their car remains the class of the field, with Ferrari and Aston Martin still lagging behind, especially in race pace. There is no indication that will change in Australia while Mercedes can hope only that they might at best move closer to the front runners.
However for all that they hold an advantage now, Horner and Red Bull are more than aware of the restrictions of operating under the F1 cost cap, which is particularly pertinent for the team, already under the cosh of a wind tunnel usage reduction imposed as punishment for breaking the cap last season. It informed Horner’s exasperation with F1’s decision to hold the first of this season’s six sprint races in Baku at the end of April.
“The reality is it’s absolutely ludicrous to be doing the first sprint race of the year in a street race like Azerbaijan,” he said in Melbourne. “I think from a spectacle point of view, from a fan point of view, it’s probably going to be one of the most exciting sprint races of the year. From a cost cap perspective, all you can do is trash your car and it costs a lot of money around there.”
F1 brought in the sprint race format in 2021 with mixed results. It is popular with promoters, adding an extra competitive session to the weekend in place of practice but the races themselves have been largely pedestrian, with drivers and teams unwilling to take risks that may compromise their race day performance.
The sport is already in discussions to potentially revise the sprint race format before Baku, which currently consists of qualifying on Friday in the afternoon deciding the grid for Saturday’s sprint race and the sprint itself deciding the grid for Sunday’s GP. The format is also felt to be unsatisfactory and could potentially be replaced by making the Saturday race a standalone event and holding a second qualifying session on Saturday morning to decide Sunday’s grid.
However for Horner and some fellow team principals, including McLaren’s Zak Brown, the major issue was holding a sprint on a circuit that could prove enormously costly to teams.
“One race is enough in Baku, the fact that we’ve got two, there could well be some action there,” Horner said. “A sprint race in Azerbaijan is something to be certainly wary of.”
