Earlier, there were reports that F1 was considering introducing reverse grids to spice up the competition. However, Mercedes is not too thrilled about this gimmick’s inclusion. Team principal Toto Wolff spoke to Sky Sports F1 about the team’s aversion to the idea. According to him, the world champions are not willing to “make any gifts” for their rivals with this ‘lottery’.
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Ever since the F1 shutdown, the sport and all 10 teams brainstormed ideas to potentially replace Saturday qualifying. One pitched the idea of a sprint race, where the championship order is reversed on the starting grid. The primary objective was to spice up the second race at the likes of Spielberg and Silverstone, who are hosting double-headers.
A number of teams were successfully swayed, but Mercedes was still not convinced. Team principal Wolff spoke to Sky F1’s Vodcast and and responded to Red Bull boss Christian Horner’s earlier comments.
Why is Mercedes not to happy about reverse grids?
Wolff said, “First of all, we seem to be digging out old ideas that have been diligently analysed and have been rejected for some good reasons.”
“One of those reasons is that we know it from touring car racing that strategy games are the name of the game, and if you know that you’re not in a great position on the weekend before, you may decide to DNF a car and start the next weekend on pole. Maybe [there are] teams that will be using that for an advantage.”
He also admitted that people tend to prefer F1’s meritocracy approach, where the best man and machine win. Wolff also believes that F1 does not need to adopt a show format like wrestling.
The Mercedes team boss concluded, “Formula 1 is a tough business and you’re not here to make any gifts. We don’t need a gimmick to turn the field around to create more exciting racing.”
