Brawn says sprint races will not 'cannibalise' Sunday's race

After much deliberation, the big word came out today: sprint races will be introduced in Formula 1. At three races this year, of which the locations still have to be announced, the 'old fashioned' qualifying session will be moved to the Friday and the 100 kilometre sprint race will take place on the Saturday. The result of this will determine the starting grid for Sunday.

Sporting director Ross Brawn presses home the point that the sprint races in no way aim to interfere with Sunday's race, still the most important part of the weekend. Speaking to F1.com, he says: "We want to engage the fans throughout the weekend. Sunday's Grand Prix is fantastic and we don't want to cannibalise that, but we want to increase engagement on Friday and Saturday."

Brawn is therefore already eagerly looking forward to the moment when the first sprint race edition is upon us: "I think it will be a great addition. There are unlikely to be any pit stops, so it will be a clean race. It will be about 30 minutes, 100 kilometres of action. We want to see how the fans like it and if the short format catches on, if it's complementary and if it works with the main race. We think it will. We think it's going to be very exciting."

According to the Brit, the drivers were first asked what their thoughts were on the whole idea and so it was decided to experiment. "The drivers are open to the format - and that's all we're asking, that the drivers are open to us, so we can evaluate this event and then decide if it will be a part of the F1 season in the future. If it doesn't work out, we'll put our hands up and think again."