Sprint race start, Red Bull Ring, 2022

Rate the race: 2022 Austrian Grand Prix sprint race

2022 Austrian Grand Prix

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What did you think of today’s race? Share your verdict on the Austrian Grand Prix sprint race.

RaceFans has held polls on every F1 race since 2008 to find out which fans thought of each round of the season.

Join in the latest poll and give your verdict on the race: 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest. Please vote based on how entertaining and exciting you thought the race was, not on how your preferred driver or team performed.

What were the best and worst moments of the race? What was the main thing you’ll remember about it? Rate the race out of ten and leave a comment below:

Rate the 2022 Austrian Grand Prix sprint race out of 10

  • 10 (0%)
  • 9 (2%)
  • 8 (10%)
  • 7 (14%)
  • 6 (12%)
  • 5 (14%)
  • 4 (12%)
  • 3 (13%)
  • 2 (5%)
  • 1 (18%)

Total Voters: 113

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1 = ‘Terrible’, 10 = ‘Perfect’

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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65 comments on “Rate the race: 2022 Austrian Grand Prix sprint race”

  1. Boring.

    As per usual.

  2. Boring.
    The idea is a failure. It’s too short to be a race, so there are no strategies able to work, and too long to be a qualy.
    Boring.

    1. in fact is shorter than a qualy… but boring

    2. same goes for F2 , I like that there is meaningful action Friday to Sunday compared to a classic race weekend where outside the feature race only the last 5 minutes of action on statuary is worth watching.

      The biggest problem with the sprint is that the races are too short and lack of tyre deg cancels out any strategies which makes the ‘long’ race enjoyable, maybe there should be an ultra soft tyre designed for sprints to create more battles because the standard tyre allocation is designed for a full gp length

      1. Make the softest tyre of the Weekend mandatory as the starting tyre Set and you have more Action on Track.

    3. The Sprint should be a separate race and not impact the WDC. It should be quite separate to Qualy on Saturday and the GP on Sunday.
      It should be for Reserve drivers or Rookies only on a Friday, just a single car from each Constructor in reverse WCC grid format and points awarded for the WCC only.

  3. Terrible. Hate these events.

  4. Decent-ish Sprint with some good battling, but not the best ever Sprint thus far.

    1. Yeah, we had a solid start with Sainz not wanting to settle for 3rd right at the start. And Perez coming through, Hamilton having a go, the battle between Norris and Albon and towards the end the fight for P8 really was good to see going for many laps. Some action we did not even get to see further towards the back – Albon had his elbows out this weekend! Good move from Zhou to gain back some places too.

      1. Sprint? According to RB radio, Max got pole position.

  5. Some poeple will say tha sprints suck.
    Those people are wrong.
    Sprint races suck very much – maybe too much.
    But if Brawn is happy, we should be happy too, right?

  6. petebaldwin (@)
    9th July 2022, 16:10

    Gave it a 3… It was ok – a few battles but it all felt a bit meaningless. I would have rather watched qualifying but I had to miss that as I was in work.

  7. Miltiadis (@miltosgreekfan)
    9th July 2022, 16:11

    6/10 just for the Hamilton-Schumacher battle that was pretty clean and gave us something to watch till the end

  8. Happy for Perez. If Hamilton had done the same, the comments on sprint race would have been different.

    1. @f180
      I agree. The sprint would have been even more boring, if Hamilton had cleared the Haas drivers as easily as Perez!

      Gave it a 3. Would’ve been a 1 without the Hamilton-Schumacher battle.

      1. Agreed. Luckily perez>mick>lewis

  9. As awful as the other sprint gimmick races.

    Only interest was cars out of position like Perez & Lewis moving forward, Not only rendering there mistakes in qualifying less of a penalty but also removing that action from the opening stint of the real race tomorrow.

    0/10.

  10. I gave it a 6/10. Probably a little too generous of me. I wish they dropped it to be honest. Next year they’ll have six of them.

  11. Boring.
    PS: We need to compare the levels of incompetence at Ferrari and Alpine this year to see who’s the best in being the worst given their resources.

    1. I think Aston Martin have them both beat.

      They built two different terrible cars in just a few months, after all.

      1. They built two different terrible cars in just a few months, after all.

        Ahahahahaaaaaaaa

  12. All that accomplished was letting Perez make up for his qualifying error by returning Ill-gotten gains.

    It also let us know that drs trains are going to make the midfield static. And that Ferrari will never be in undercut range on Verstappen tomorrow.

  13. Overwhelmingly positive feedback so far. Maybe time to trial six more for next year, and see what fans think of those.

    1. At this point I almost think we should support sprints in the current format, otherwise, instead of cancelling them, they will try to improve them with something like a reverse grid.
      It would be horrendous, but the only way sprints could work it was if they had reserve grids. Other than that, only rain or cars out of position make it watchworthing.

      1. That’s true of many races too.

      2. I agree, if they want to continue sprints, they need to use reverse grid, they would be a lot more eventful than they are atm, if I recall the best sprint was brazil one, why? Hamilton starting from the back.

  14. I liked the DRS train it neutrlised the DRS a little bit so Mick could defend against Perez and Hamilton. Fun to see the Ferraris fight each other was a good battle. For me a 7

    1. Yes, Mercs are too draggy which limits their top end , also Lewis had front damage at the start due to gasly’s trademark torpedo starts and the haas with Ferrari engines and low drag aero config plus micks drs makes them an hard overtake unless you are in a rb.

      Albon proves he is useless getting 5+ penalty for pushing Norris plus taking out seb, if Lewis did this most people would call for the death penalty.. Johnny Herbert at sky make a great point saying Max and perez got away with forcing cars off the road last week but Alex got a 5 second penalty for a less severe squeeze..

      AT are a joke going backwards due to zero upgrades, maybe this is a sign that Honda are going to buy the team?

      1. For the same maneouver in 2019 over LEC, VER not only did not get any penalty, but won the race. Applying penalties is obviously a subjective matter… unfortunately.

  15. Yes (@come-on-kubica)
    9th July 2022, 16:28

    Woeful and a waste of time.

  16. Nonsense from A-Z.
    Leave the thoroughbred F1 DNA well alone.
    Take your LibFlix “circus” show to some other sport.
    Thanks.

  17. As ever, very few positives (if any) from what feels like an utter waste of time. Yes we saw on track action, but it shuffled Perez back into position. Sprint races are just qualifying sessions that go relatively well for the top teams and gives them points.

    It makes tomorrow’s race less interesting.

  18. I could have also waited to find out that Mercedes actually has no prayer of contending for the win n the race. Russell got dropped like me on my last group ride. If Hamilton has another start like that he will be lapped.

  19. Boring, and, as others have already pointed out, just allowed Perez to escape his qualifying mistake and showed us that Mercedes have no pace to trouble Ferrari and Red Bull.

  20. If the GP was equally as boring (which they often are) should we also scrap the GP’s?
    This pretty uneventful sprint race was a product of the fundamental basics of the cars and technical regs, not strictly the format.

    I wonder how many noticed that the field spread in the sprint was much less than it is in the GP’s….

    1. Oh… and I give it a 3.
      F1 is usually pretty boring, so this was no surprise.

      1. I give this one a 10.
        Not that it was a 10 (probably more like an 8 with the many good fights throughout the field) but because many racefans here gave last week’s race a 10 after an artificial reset and chance tyre variation.
        At least this week the on track fights were purely based on car and driver performances rather than those artificial mix-ups.

        1. That’s true.
          I just watched it again, and feel that I was probably a bit harsh. Ferrari had a bit of a battle and Perez and a few others put on some moves… The ongoing Schumacher/Hamilton thing was actually pretty decent.

          Would it have happened in a GP?
          Probably not. Hamilton would have pitted early to get out in clean air instead, I’d suspect.

    2. Genuinely curious. What is the appeal for you following F1 so closely if you find most events dull and boring? I used to follow football closely but found myself enjoying it less and less so I basically stopped following it entirely. I don’t think I’ve watched a game for over 10 years now.

      1. It’s probably just habit.
        There’s still a small part of me that hopes one day F1 will finally listen and either start making itself into a decent racing series, or go back to being a strong technical competition again……
        I know it won’t happen, but that’s optimism for you.

  21. Adam (@rocketpanda)
    9th July 2022, 16:43

    In defense of it, it wasn’t boring. The Ferrari’s more interested in fighting each other than Verstappen at the front was fun to watch, as was Hamilton vs the Haas’s and Perez’s charge. Even Albon v Norris and the prospect of the McLaren’s battling at the end was good.

    That being said… much of the fun originated from cars being out of position – as in faster ones fighting slower ones ahead of them. Basically put there’s still not much incentive for after the first 5-10 laps for cars to continue fighting because of limited reward/impact on Sunday and the amount of laps is too short to really make any difference.

    There’s a good idea here of that I’m sure and we’re close to it, but this isn’t it. A little more tweaks required.

  22. Tedious and pointless and the track is still rubbish.

    1. the track is still rubbish.

      Are you serious?

      1. Yes almighty S, that is my humble opinion.

        1. Have you ever seen any other series racing here?

          It’s not as much a of technical challenge for the driver as Suzuka or Spa, sure – but this is a racing circuit in the truest sense of the word.

      2. Kind of a glorified Scalextric track. Nice mountains though.

      3. The track has one gimmick to its corners, and that’s repeated around the whole track with the only other corner basically being a straight. It is indeed rather dull.

    2. *not actually ‘pointless’ unfortunately.

  23. The sprint races are just repeating the same thing again and again. Aside from allowing the top teams to fix any qualifying mistakes their drivers may have made, what’s even worse is that it shows just how terrible Pirelli’s spec tyres are. They can’t even be pushed in a sprint race, leading to the trains of tyre-managing cars we have in the Grand Prix but without any of the strategic interest.

    Hopefully the increasing exposure F1 has generated will allow them to cut ties with sponsor/supplier Pirelli and have proper race tyres that don’t take center stage in every session.

  24. The biggest problem with a sprint race is that it’s a race without most of the elements which are the things that can help make a GP more exciting.

    When it comes to the GP it’s things like Pit strategy, Pace management, Lapped traffic, Track evolution over 90+ minutes & more that helps keep you engaged in whats going in & creates moments of interest at varying points which can help create that extra bit of excitement.

    The biggest problem i’ve always had with the shorter/sprint race format is that they are races which are over before anything has had any time to develop. There’s no real flow or story to them which leads them to be rather forgettable.

    1. Exactly. The whole point of a Grand Prix is the development of the entire race over a long distance, different battles, pit strategies, reliability, tire management, etc. None of these things exist in a mini prix.

  25. Ridiculous and pointless (although points are awarded, unfortunately). This format is just terrible in my opinion and adds nothing positive to the race weekend.

  26. An excellent opportunity to crash the cars before the real race. Brilliant idea..

  27. Short. Less than interesting. Too much orange smoke/fog.

    Not a Grand Prix race. The “sprint” is a practice, *boom* it is over. Bleh…

  28. Schumacher will be leveling up like crazy having competed with both Lewis and Max in the span of just two weeks.

  29. Simply awful, waste of time.

  30. Not too eventful, gave it a 6 and I see 60% gave it less, but even so, 40% is an extremely high amount to give it a passable mark, considering how bad the public opinion of sprint races is.

    1. passing* mark I guess it is.

  31. Formula One cars were circulating so it was entertaining in that respect. Gave it a 5. I still don’t get the point though.

  32. I think there should be a voting option for “do not want a sprint race”, as I feel quite confident that at least some of the “1’s” are not really rating the race as is the intention of the poll, but instead just voicing an objection to the format.

    1. Sorry, but just wanted to clarify further as I anticipate some may feel that using the “1” as a vote against the format is reasonable. However this is clearly not the case. Rating a genuine 1 suggests that for wat it was it was the worst it could be. However an ‘objector’ may not care if it was boring or spectacular, hence why I feel they need different categorisations.

      1. Yep. Lots of ‘voting on principle’ here – but the same happens in the positive too.

  33. Why can’t we have a zero choice?

    1. You have the choice to not vote, @clive-allen.

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