Sebastian Vettel has backed former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone’s criticism of the new ‘sprint qualifying’ format which debuts at Silverstone this weekend. Ecclestone, 90, said his major objection to the format is that it is “mucking around” with history – given that the purity of a pole position will now be compromised. “People would say somebody has 70 pole positions but that has gone now,” he said. Ecclestone’s friend and quadruple world champion Vettel agrees that designating the winner of the 100km sprint race on Saturday as the official pole sitter is “wrong”. And the winner of the sprint race, he insists, should not go down in history as the pole-sitter of the grand prix weekend. Pole position should remain the absolute fastest lap of the weekend as the result of qualifying,” said Vettel.

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