A plague of technical problems beset the train network out of Amsterdam on the Saturday morning of the Dutch Grand Prix weekend, raising the possibility that thousands of fans might miss the sprint race. Lucky them. Sitting, or indeed standing, on a crowded vessel of public transport reading one of those wretched pieces of AI-generated slash-fiction slop which bedevil the Kindle Unlimited service would probably have been preferable to occupying a hard plastic bench in the bleachers as the 24 processional laps unfolded. It was an object lesson in the folly of holding these sprint events at venues where overtaking is unlikely, save for the invisible machinations of tyre performance. Social media assumed some semblance of its former sporadically amusing self as users posted wit such as "This race could have been an e-mail…"

The long-standing argument in favour of sprint weekends is that having less practice time tends to lead to less predictable outcomes, since the teams have less time to finesse their set-ups. Another point is that practice sessions are inherently tedious for the audience. But is there really such a difference between that and a high-speed procession masquerading as a motor race? Also inarguable is the commercial reality that race promoters love sprint weekends because they sell more tickets - which is why F1 plans to double the number to 12 next season.

It's time to accept that the sprint format isn't suitable for all venues. Granted, Zandvoort is now heading into the vault of history, but there are plenty of other tracks still on the calendar with only one practicable overtaking zone. Combine that with most of the field running the same tyre and a procession is inevitable. Sadly, Liberty Media itself seems to take the contrasting view – that the sprint format is the finished product with no further need for iterative development.