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FIA president Mohammed ben Sulayem wants to do some more “homework” on the viability of increasing the number of F1 sprints, it has been claimed.

Although the number of sprint qualifying events had been expected to be doubled to six this season, ultimately it remained at last year’s three.

Brazil will stage a sprint for the second consecutive year, whereas Silverstone and Monza will give way to Imola – already won by Max Verstappen – and the Austrian Grand Prix this time around.

From a sporting aspect, Formula 1 themselves are in favour of more sprints, although teams have previously expressed reservations as they thought it could impact on the budget cap as a greater amount of ‘racing’ could lead to more collisions and therefore increased repair costs.

That issue appeared to be resolved, but then at an F1 Commission meeting in April the FIA raised a perceived financial barrier of their own by saying they were “still evaluating the impact on trackside operations and personnel” of an increase in sprint qualifying weekends.

Toto Wolff and Zak Brown, Mercedes team principal and McLaren CEO respectively, believe Ben Sulayem is keen to do more analysis from the FIA’s side before signing off the greater number of sprints.

“I think that scrutiny needs to be given on the decisions we take,” said Wolff. “And I’m sure between Stefano [Domenicali, F1 CEO] and Mohammed, we will come to a resolution.

“For Mohammed, it was important to hear the FIA’s