Formula 1 has been open in recent years to making format changes with the introduction of the Sprint races.
The first sprint race took place at the 2021 British Grand Prix and was the first time in the 70-year history of the championship that the weekend format was changed.
Initially, qualifying took place on Friday instead of Saturday, while a 100km Sprint race on Saturday was used to determine the grid for Sunday.
This has since been changed to accommodate a stand-alone Sprint event on Saturday morning, with qualifying for the Grand Prix still taking place in the afternoon.
F2 CEO Bruno Michel says F1 Chief Executive Stefano Domenicali has been open to making further changes to the format when discussing it on the Beyond the Grid podcast.
F2 boss says F1 Sprint race change could happen
The idea of having a reverse grid was initially touted for Sprint races, however, it failed to gain traction among the teams due to it being too much of a contrived way of racing.
But in recent months the idea has floated again now that the Sprint races are stand-alone events on the calendar. When asked about whether it was discussed with Domenicali to adopt a similar strategy to F2, Michel said it was something that could happen.
“He’s absolutely open to that. There are resistances, of course. But for me, it would be a great opportunity, for sure. Being extremely careful as well on how many cars you reverse and how many points you attribute.
“That’s the key element of a reverse grid. If you do it properly, you have to make sure of one thing: that if nothing happens over a race weekend, if no drivers overtakes, then the drivers on pole position should have more points.
“The second driver should have the second more points. It’s a quite interesting exercise.”
F1 needs to find a solution to Sprint race problem
There is set to be another six sprint events next year at China, Miami, Belgium, Austin, Brazil and Qatar.
The underlying problem with Sprint races is that they effectively act as a 24-hour red flag, taking away some of the unknowns from the rest of the race weekend.
Since it no longer is used to determine the grid order, having a reverse grid might be the final solution to trying to make Sprint races work as intended.
Such a change would need the unanimous support of the teams, however, which might be difficult for those at the sharp end of the grid with the amount of points on offer.
But it serves as a better way for those teams at the back to potentially earn championship points, instead of increasing the offering down to 12th as was initially suggested before it was vetoed this month by the F1 Commission.
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