REMINDER: How do the new sprint rules work?
For the fourth time in 2024 and the first time in Austin, we will have a Sprint weekend to enjoy too, presenting further opportunity for fans to enjoy some closer racing action. F1Technical's lead journalist Balazs Szabo explains how the special format works.
This weekend, the Circuit of the Americas hosts the fourth Sprint format weekend of the season, which means just one free practice session on Friday followed by Sprint qualifying.
The Sprint race takes place on Saturday followed by qualifying for Sunday afternoon’s Grand Prix.
Sprint weekends were introduced at select Grands Prix in 2021. While the first season included three sprint races, that amount of was doubled last year with the same number of sprint race set to take place in 2024.
The locations where the special weekend format will come into force are China, Miami, Austria, Austin, Brazil and Qatar.
The sport has significantly changed the weekend format for the F1 2024 season.
Under the new schedule, the first and only free practice takes place on Friday ahead of the Sprint Qualifying that is staged on the same day. Saturday includes the Sprint and Grand Prix Qualifying while Grand Prix takes place on Sunday.
The return of the Sprint format, means things will get serious at the Circuit of the American right from Friday. The one and only free practice session starts at 19.30 CEST, followed by Sprint qualifying at 23.30.
On Saturday, the drivers tackle the Sprint Race at 20.00, before switching their attention to qualifying for the Grand Prix at 00.00. The race gets underway on Sunday at 21.00.
The sprint format also brings a different tyre allocation. It means that, the usual dry tyre allocation drops from 13 sets to 12 (meaning two C2 hards, four C3 mediums and six C4 softs), while the number of wet-weather sets remains the same (five intermediate and two wet).
Expanding on the condensed nature of the sprint format, Haas race engineer Mark Slade said: “There is a lot of extra work for a Sprint, especially in amongst a triple-header, but it also makes it very interesting, it’s all a part of Formula 1.
"You have to be realistic that you’re not going to be able to do everything you’d like to do with one practice session, so you have to pick the most important points that you think are relevant to getting the best out of the car in both the Sprint and the race and work to achieve those objectives – it’s a very compressed, highly edited run plan.
"The format of a Sprint is different from previous years, so you can afford to be a little bit more experimental in the Sprint race because points only go to eighth place, and realistically we’re chasing that last points-paying position so it means we can try things that we wouldn’t necessarily have tried, knowing we can change things for the race.”
