Hamilton: Too much time 'wasted' on Sprint weekends

Lewis Hamilton liked having a standalone Sprint event on Saturday but felt that F1's new format featured too little running and too much wasted time.

In Baku last weekend, Formula 1 premiered its revised Sprint format in which teams are given just a single practice session on Friday to gear up for qualifying for Sunday's race, while Saturday is entirely devoted to Sprint running, with a mid-day qualifying session followed in the afternoon by the shorter distanced race.

"I think there’s a lot of time wasted on the weekends, so I think we could do it in a shorter amount of days," commented Hamilton, speaking after Saturday's Sprint event.

"You could still do three days, but I think the teams get here way early like Monday or Tuesday, and I got here on Wednesday.

"There’s four hours waiting between sessions today, today we could have done at least three sessions.

"We can do three sessions each day. There was so much time to [use] during this day. I don’t know if that’s possible with all the other formulas that are going on."

Hamilton nevertheless gave a thumbs up to adding a Sprint Shootout to the mix.

"I like qualifying so it was pretty cool to have a second qualifying," said the Briton.

Read also:

• Hamilton: Baku result another 'build' to getting where we need to be

Hamilton's Mercedes teammate George Russell is keeping an open mind about the changes but suggested that the time spent by cars in parc fermé – which starts before Friday's qualifying and last until Sunday - should perhaps be reduced to allow teams to make set-up changes.

"I think it would be nice if the teams were allowed to make a set-up change, perhaps on a Friday night," noted the GPDA director.

"It was a shame that you’ve got all these intelligent engineers here and you’re just locked in after one practice session. I hope it doesn’t take any excitement away from Sundays.

"I think the best people to judge are the fans at home, how they feel. But I mean, from a driver’s perspective, it’s quite fun.

"You’re going out there, you’re racing more, [doing] more competitive laps. We don’t enjoy just tooting around in practice and testing.

"But as I said, I just hope it doesn’t take too much away from Sundays."

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