Formula One team principals are bracing for a "chaotic" first Sprint weekend of the year at the high speed Baku street circuit.
It will be the first time a Sprint has ever been held in Azerbaijan and the first of six such events in 2023. That's double the number of the short-form races held in each of the previous two years as F1 chiefs look to expand a format it argues brings more exciting action for fans.
But the format is not universally popular. It has its critics – most notably defending champion Max Verstappen, who has consistently made it clear he is not a fan of the Sprints.
"I'm just not a big fan of it, because I feel like we don't really race," he said in Brazil last year – the site of the most recent Sprint. "Okay, there are a few points to get, but you also know that you can't really risk it because the main race is where you really get the points."
It is that risk factor which also worries his team boss Christian Horner, who believes it is a bad idea to add an extra race onto the Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekend. The Red Bull chief admits it will be exciting for fans, but believes the heightened risk of a crash in Baku makes it an "absolutely ludicrous" decision.
While they didn't go as far as to criticise that call like Horner, some of his fellow team principals are also bracing for the risk ahead. "It could be [chaotic], but that makes it interesting," Haas chief Guenther Steiner said.
"Hopefully there is no chaos, but it could be. Baku is always a race... If you think in Australia we had three red flags – can you imagine how many red flags we will have in Baku in two races?!"
And Williams boss James Vowles put across a similar message in a video on the team's website. He said: "It's going to be a Sprint race weekend, potentially with slight modifications to the rules we have had previously and that work is now ongoing in the background to understand how we should restructure the race weekend and what the implications of that will be on everyone.
"Irrespective of whether the rules change or not, a Sprint race weekend at that tight, twisty track where you go through the castle section is going to cause a little bit of mayhem."
