F1车迷需要更少的冲刺赛，而非更多
荷兰大奖赛周六阿姆斯特丹铁路故障可能导致数千车迷错过冲刺赛，但作者认为这或许是好事，并批评冲刺赛数量过多的趋势。
在荷兰大奖赛周末的周六早上，阿姆斯特丹周边的铁路网络遭遇了大规模的技术故障，数千名车迷有可能因此错过冲刺赛。
当这24圈毫无波澜的比赛展开时，坐在（或者说站着）拥挤的公共交通工具上，读一篇那种在Kindle Unlimited服务上泛滥成灾的、由AI生成的低劣同人垃圾小说，恐怕都比在看台上硬塑料长椅上占个位置要舒服。这是给那些把冲刺赛安排在几乎不可能超车的场地（除了轮胎性能这一看不见的玄机之外）的人上的一堂愚蠢课。'拿好我的赫托赫·扬啤酒！诺里斯的后胎在衰减！'——从来没有人说过这种话。
社交媒体在过去几年里一直是浪费时间的毒瘤，但这次它多少恢复了一点往日那种偶尔有趣的模样，用户们发布了诸如'这场比赛本来可以是一封电子邮件……'之类的妙语。人们确实会觉得，任何真正渴望看到车手们列队绕场的人，大可以在周日的午间如愿，届时他们会站在平板卡车上向人群挥手。如果那样还不满足，也可以再让他们坐进乐高赛车里。
支持冲刺赛周末的一个长期论点是，练习时间较少往往会让比赛结果更难预测，因为车队没有足够的时间去精细调校赛车。这大体上是对的。另一个支持的理由是，通常占据整个周末的练习赛对观众来说本质上就很枯燥，因为没有任何真正的故事线——只有赛车按着观众看不见的计划在赛道上绕圈。这一点也很难反驳——但那和一场伪装成赛车比赛的高速巡游之间，真的有本质区别吗？
同样无可争辩的是商业现实：赛事推广方喜欢冲刺赛周末，因为冲刺赛能卖出更多门票——这也是为什么F1计划在下赛季把冲刺赛数量翻倍至12场。再说一次，这没问题——但比赛质量必须更好，否则冲刺赛周末就应该安排在那些具备超车条件的赛道上，而不是通过某种晦涩的恩惠制度来运作——把冲刺赛当作对推广方的一种激励或摸摸头的奖励。
勒克莱尔在赞德沃特的冲刺赛中完成了一项罕见壮举——超越了一辆别的车。
可以理解赞德沃特被给了一点甜头，以便在它的最后一场比赛里最大化周末门票销售，毕竟扬·拉默斯和他的团队在没有国家支持的情况下，以私营企业的形式为复兴荷兰大奖赛投入了大量精力。但偏偏是新加坡将承办下一场冲刺赛，原因只有商业权益持有者自己知道。
是时候承认冲刺赛赛制并不适合所有场地了。诚然，赞德沃特即将进入历史，但赛历上仍有许多赛道只有一个可行的超车区域，追赶的赛车必须比前车快半秒才能完成超越。再叠加大多数车手使用相同轮胎的情况，一场列队行进式的比赛就在所难免。
遗憾的是，一级方程式（F1）本身似乎持相反的观点——即冲刺赛赛制已是最终成品，无需再进行迭代改进。该赛制最初在2021年的三场比赛中进行评估时，形式是周五举行排位赛，其成绩决定周六冲刺赛的发车顺序，而冲刺赛的结果又决定了大奖赛的正赛发车顺序。
既然一级方程式（F1）已经足够聪明，能够通过迭代改进摆脱最初的缺陷，那么继续这一过程、进一步审视这一赛制，难道不也是明智之举吗
很快人们就发现，这样做只不过是按速度顺序重新排列了发车顺序，因此赛制演变成现在的形式——排位赛和 Parking（ Parking）封闭检录期分开进行，使冲刺赛实际上与大奖赛相互独立。至少它不再充当主赛事的破坏者了。
鉴于一级方程式（F1）已经足够聪明，能够通过迭代改进摆脱最初的缺陷，那么考虑到上述明显的缺陷，继续这一过程并进一步审视这一赛制，难道不也是明智之举吗？由于冲刺赛从根本上乏味无趣，车手和车迷们普遍对其持批评态度。
显然，如今“车迷”这个词承载了很多含义，因为F1车迷群体的庞大意味着它涵盖了广泛的人口结构。这使得F1首席执行官斯特凡诺·多梅尼卡利可以轻松地摆摆手说，大多数车迷并不在乎这些事情，却没有任何有意义的数据来支持他的说法。就在上周末，多梅尼卡利在接受《电讯报》采访时又一次滑入了“意外帕特里奇”（Accidental Partridge，指无意中说出滑稽言论）的领域，他在谈到2026年技术规则时评论道：“有些铁杆车迷会在一个F1比赛周末谈论地面效应（clipping，指气流下压力相关现象），但也会有许多人认为夹子（clip）是你别在头发上的东西。”
要不要冲刺赛，这是一个问题
英文原文
A plague of technical problems beset the train network out of Amsterdam on the Saturday morning of the Dutch Grand Prix weekend, raising the possibility that thousands of fans might miss the sprint race.
Sitting, or indeed standing, on a crowded vessel of public transport reading one of those wretched pieces of AI-generated slash-fiction slop which bedevil the Kindle Unlimited service would probably have been preferable to occupying a hard plastic bench in the bleachers as the 24 processional laps unfolded. It was an object lesson in the folly of holding these sprint events at venues where overtaking is unlikely, save for the invisible machinations of tyre performance. Hold my Hertog Jan! Norris's rear tyres are degrading! – said no one, ever.
Social media, a toxic waste of time these past couple of years, assumed some semblance of its former sporadically amusing self as users posted wit such as "This race could have been an e-mail…"Certainly one felt that anyone with a burning desire to see the drivers parading around in a line could do so on Sunday lunchtime when they wave at the crowd from the back of a flatbed truck. Failing that, they could put them in Lego cars again.
The long-standing argument in favour of sprint weekends is that having less practice time tends to lead to less predictable outcomes, since the teams have less time to finesse their set-ups. This, more or less, is true. Another point in favour is that practice sessions such as usually populate a weekend are inherently tedious for the audience, since there is no real narrative – just cars circulating a track to an unseen plan. Also difficult to dispute – but is there really such a difference between that and a high-speed procession masquerading as a motor race?
Also inarguable is the commercial reality that race promoters love sprint weekends because they sell more tickets - which is why F1 plans to double the number to 12 next season. Again, fine – but the racing needs to be better, or the sprint weekends should be distributed around those circuits where overtaking is possible, rather than operating via some abstruse grace and favour system where promoters get a sprint as an incentive or a pat on the head.
Leclerc achieved a rarity in the Zandvoort sprint - overtaking another car
One can understand Zandvoort being handed a little something to maximise weekend ticket sales for its final event, given the energy Jan Lammers and his team have invested in bringing the Dutch GP back to life as a private enterprise without state backing. But Singapore, of all places, will host the next sprint race, for reasons known only to the commercial rights holder.
It's time to accept that the sprint format isn't suitable for all venues. Granted, Zandvoort is now heading into the vault of history, but there are plenty of other tracks still on the calendar with only one practicable overtaking zone requiring the chasing car to be half a second quicker than the chased. Combine that with most of the field running the same tyre and a procession is inevitable.
Sadly, F1 itself seems to take the contrasting view – that the sprint format is the finished product with no further need for iterative development. When first evaluated, over three events in 2021, the format was a qualifying session on Friday which set the grid for Saturday's sprint race, the results of which in term determined the grid for the grand prix.
F1 was smart enough to iterate away from the initial flaws, would it not also be wise to continue that process and interrogate the format further
What quickly became obvious was that all this did was reset the grid in pace order, hence the evolution into the present format with separate qualifying sessions and parc ferme periods so the sprint in effect lives separately from the grand prix. At least it no longer functions as a spoiler for the main event.
Given that F1 was smart enough to iterate away from the initial flaws, would it not also be wise to continue that process and interrogate the format further, given the obvious shortcomings outlined above? The sprint races remain widely derided by drivers and fans, given their fundamentally uneventful nature.
Obviously the word "fans" does a lot of heavy lifting these days, since the size of F1's fanbase means it incorporates a broad demographic spectrum. This enables F1 CEO Stefano Domenicali to wave his hands and say airily, with no meaningful data to back up his contention, that most fans don't care about such things. Only last weekend, for instance, Domenicali once again sailed into Accidental Partridge territory in an interview with De Telegraaf where he opined, apropos the 2026 tech regulations, "There are die-hard fans who talk about clipping during a Formula 1 weekend, but there will also be many who think a clip is something you put in your hair."
To sprint or not to sprint, that is the question
Autosport ·
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