Brawn hopeful of sprint races after Baku finale: 'no worries about tyres then'

Where earlier Lance Stroll was the victim of an exploding tyre, later on it was race leader Max Verstappen who ended up in the wall thanks to an exploded tyre. The subsequent red flag and standing start brought the excitement back.

While Verstappen seemed to be cruising to victory, the somewhat dull middle part of the race came to an abrupt end. Michael Masi brought the men to the grid with a red flag, and later decided to finish the last few laps with a standing start. This made it extra exciting, because every driver could install new tyres during the red flag.

Ross Brawn, F1's sporting director, said the spectacle of the standing start was a good sign for the sprint races that will be run for the first time this year. To F1.com he says: "I was encouraged to hear a number of commentators say that we need ten more laps of the action we saw in the last two laps of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, because it's a good warm-up for the sprint races."

"The qualifying for the sprint will take a little longer, about 17 to 20 laps, but it's quite possible that we'll get the same exciting races, because the drivers won't have to worry about saving tyres," Brawn let slip.