At Silverstone, where it all started, the new format including the Sprint Qualifying will debut next weekend, when the British Grand Prix is scheduled to take place. A race of 100 km to be completed on Saturday (replacing the more classic qualifying session), the result of which will determine the starting grid for Sunday’s main event. Formula 1 looks ahead, and also backwards, reminding us of the drivers of the past who would have liked this solution.
Like former Scuderia Ferrari driver Gilles Villeneuve, the Canadian legend who once said: “I will drive flat-out all the time. I love racing” – And Gilles is fondly remembered for his driving on the limit. Or like Keke Rosberg. The Finnish world champion ’82, whose surname in the eyes of a younger fan will recall his son Nico, is the one who in 1985 raced, on the old Silverstone circuit – the one around the RAF air base dating back to the Second World War, the lap fastest in history (or so at least until the 2002 Italian GP) with an average of 258 km / h. A moment that “lives in my memory as one of the most extraordinary moments”.
Others would have liked it like Nigel Mansell, one of Formula 1’s most iconic characters. Or Juan Pablo Montoya, the very man who broke Keke Rosberg’s lap speed record at Monza seventeen years later. Whose name recalls the great battles with Michael Schumacher.
Among the drivers mentioned who would have been thrilled to try the Sprint Qualifying there are also Jean Alesi, Ayrton Senna and Niki Lauda. We are sure that the Frenchman, beloved by the Ferrari fans despite only one Grand Prix won in his career (Canadian GP – 1995), would gladly try a race where he is required to give his best lap after lap. The Brazilian and also the Austrian legend, who met in the paddock only for a short period (between ’84 and ’85 – at the beginning of their career for the first and at the end of the second), would have especially enjoyed this format for the race weekend.
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