The sprint race plan intrigues me in some ways.
1 - They managed to get every team to agree! It's Formula 1, all the teams never agree on anything. Of course, it turns out that it's only an agreement in principle, which leaves plenty of room for everyone to change their minds, but at least its a start.*
2 - Often, when they bring in major rule changes, it's all or nothing. A 3-race trial of the sprint races is a really good idea, especially for something they're positioning as a big change.
3 - The choice of the races to test it at. The chosen three are the Canadian, Italian and Brazilian Grand Prix. If the idea is to bring more people in by moving qualifying to the Friday, they're reasonable choices; the Canadian Grand Prix is round a street circuit, and Monza's easy enough to get to from Milan. If someone was coming to one of those races anyway, an extra day wouldn't make that much difference in terms of accommodation. Certainly, doing this at other tracks e.g. Silverstone or Monaco, would be a lot more difficult.
Fewer people will still come on Fridays because of a nasty thing called work, but it might increase interest in the Friday sessions for TV, so both TV and the tracks themselves might get more money out of this.
Why am I focussing on the backstage stuff and the inevitable horse-trading and intrigue? Because I don't think the sprint races are going to change anything in terms of racing excitement. The teams aren't going to let it have enough points to change anything at the end of the season, there are only 3 of the spread through the whole season (21 races) and, let's be honest, that Mercedes is enough ahead that it could give the rest of the cars a one-lap head start and still win.
The (probable) lack of a pitstop means there's no way Mercedes will some how stuff one up which cuts off another possible way of them not-winning.
The only way sprint racing might change anything is either first lap chaos and there not being enough time for Mercedes to catch up. I am not expecting overtaking, because if there's (almost) no overtaking in long races, why would there be any (more) in short races?
I don't see this solving F1's problems with regard to lack of in-race action.
*I am trying to figure out if this has been done to increase viewership, to bring in more money, and if the elongated engine freeze being used to get the smaller teams onside. Which leads to the question of what are they giving Mercedes and Ferrari in exchange?
