Sprint Weekends

Six weekends per season run the sprint format. Friday keeps just one practice session before Sprint Qualifying (a shortened SQ1/SQ2/SQ3 knockout) sets Saturday's sprint grid. Saturday holds the sprint race — about 100 km, roughly a third of Grand Prix distance — followed by traditional qualifying for Sunday's main event.

The compression is the point: with one hour of practice instead of three, setup mistakes are locked in early, and every session carries competitive stakes.

Sprints run flat-out with no mandatory pit stop — around 20 laps of pure racing. The top eight score points: 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. That's enough to matter in a tight championship but not enough to make drivers cautious, which is exactly the balance the format aims for.

The sprint result does not set Sunday's grid (it did in early versions of the format). Sunday's grid comes from its own qualifying session, so a sprint crash doesn't necessarily ruin the Grand Prix.

With no required stop, sprint strategy is about tire choice for a single stint and first-lap positioning. Data gathered in the sprint — tire degradation, race pace, following in dirty air — feeds directly into Sunday's strategy planning, making the sprint a paid rehearsal.

For teams starting out of position, the sprint is also a low-risk laboratory: try an aggressive setup or an unusual tire, and if it fails, Sunday is untouched.