Team boss questions sprint qualifying format: 'Changed little for the race'

Looking back on the sprint qualifying session at Silverstone, McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl would prefer it if the new format was not used every week. He believes the sprint on Saturday offered little surprise but served well as a forecast of the Grand Prix.

"It is good that we have these trials now this year for three weekends," Seidl said, as quoted by Motorsport.com. "I think it is a good idea to only use it for specific event and tracks for a different format."

The team boss believes that the format with the sprint race, which will return twice more this season, could not act as a standard roadmap for every race weekend. Seidl: "I don’t see it being the standard for all weekends."

Looking back at the sprint race, the German continued, "The sprint race in the end gave a good picture of where everyone has been in terms of race pace. It was obvious to see that Charles was already very strong and we couldn’t beat him [on Saturday] and the same happened again [on Sunday]."

"I would say no big surprises and no big learnings from the sprint race that changed anything for the race today," concluded Seidl.