The FIA has confirmed the starting times for all 120 official Formula 1 grand prix sessions which will take place this year.
Each of the 24 rounds on the 2024 F1 calendar will feature five sessions, the configurations of which will vary between regular grand prix weekends and six sprint rounds. The sprint event format was altered earlier this month.In a change for this year, qualifying for the grand prix will be the final session which takes place before the main event. Sprint races had occupied this slot, at the rounds where they were held, since the format’s introduction in 2021.
This year’s sprint races will be the first session to take place on Saturdays, before grand prix qualifying. The extra qualifying sessions for sprint races have moved from Saturdays to Fridays, after first practice.
The FIA delayed confirming the start times of these sessions until the changes to the sprint format were approved. Now it has been, the schedule of sprint races has been made official.
The Chinese Grand Prix will be the first sprint round. Its sprint race will start at 11am local time, which is 5am for most of Europe, 4am in the UK and 11pm on Friday night for viewers on the east coast of America.
The remaining sprint races will take place in Miami, Red Bull Ring, Circuit of the Americas, Interlagos and Losail.
The FIA also confirmed changes to the starting times for the Las Vegas Grand Prix practice and qualifying sessions. These will begin two hours earlier than last year, following complaints over what F1 personnel described as a “brutal” schedule. The grand prix start time remains unchanged as previously announced.
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Jere (@jerejj)
16th February 2024, 11:49
Finally, although not yet shown on the official site, but probably soon enough.
I’m surprised LV GP took equally long, though, despite having the standard format, but anyway, the full consistency I was hoping for with FP2-QLF-Race sharing a start time & likewise FP1/3 ironically got granted, which should be the case for all standard format events for consistency’s sake.
RandomMallard
16th February 2024, 11:50
Oh no! Anyway
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
17th February 2024, 3:33
Ahah, was thinking that with how many people don’t like sprints and them being in the middle of night a lot of people wouldn’t mind!
DB-C90 (@dbradock)
16th February 2024, 12:16
It would be 11am my time but makes no difference because as I have since the sprint abominations started I won’t be watching any part of that weekend.
The only way to say no to sprint abominations is to take eyeballs away from the events.
Archibald Bumfluff
16th February 2024, 13:53
Dude chill out, it’s just a short extra race.
You don’t need to like them, but “abomination” is a bit strong
Craig
16th February 2024, 14:11
What it is is a waste of everybody’s time. The fact it needs to be compared to practice to pass it off as a good thing speaks volumes. I’d rather have the practice so we can see a full race of these cars as good as they can be rather then 1.5 races with them running a half baked setup.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
17th February 2024, 3:34
It’s fair to compare it to practice, because you still have the race even in sprint weekends, it’s practice that it’s gone, it makes sense to make that comparison to me.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
17th February 2024, 3:35
that’s gone*
SteveP
16th February 2024, 15:50
It’s a waste of an opportunity for a competitive showcase of the abilities of prospective young F1 drivers.
Leksa (@leksa)
16th February 2024, 17:12
It’s perfectly accurate to call them abomination. That’s what they are: disgrace that never should have come to existence. If money didn’t speak, we didn’t need to suffer from sprints today.
S
17th February 2024, 6:10
If money didn’t speak, you wouldn’t have F1 at all.
Michael A.
17th February 2024, 7:49
The sprint things are an abomination, through and through. The sad aspect is that people making so many $-millions can make such stupid decisions. F1 was not completely broken and it did not need ‘fixing’ in such a stupid manner.
AlanD
16th February 2024, 20:06
I wouldn’t call them abominations, but I don’t like the mixed format. As it stands, the sprint race is just a truncated version of a GP, unlike other sports such as football where a normal match and five-a-side are completely different gaes, in cricket where a T20 and a test atch are vastly different. In F1, if you turned the TV on in the middle of a race, you’d have no idea if you were watching a sprint or a GP. If the sprint championship was for junior and reserve drivers only, I think a lot of people would get into it. When it is just a way of soaking up even more minutes on TV and a way of making some weekends worth more points than others, I think a lot of the longer-term race fans get a bit frustrated with it.
Grockle (@bennyh1)
17th February 2024, 9:42
I don’t feel the T20 comparison stands up. A T20 is actually similar to a sprint race in that it is a shorter format. If, as a casual viewer, you were to watch only a few overs of either a T20 or a test there is no considerable difference between the two.
I am indifferent to sprint races. Occasionally the alternative tyre strategy can add something.
Bullfrog (@bullfrog)
16th February 2024, 13:44
These morning races are a bit of a graveyard slot, whatever time zone you’re in.
Friday evening might work better, or less badly – maybe they’ll try that next year.
Jere (@jerejj)
16th February 2024, 20:17
Morning timings are my favorite.
Jonathan Parkin
16th February 2024, 14:07
I’d never actually considered how many sessions they had over a year but seeing the number made my eyes go wide a bit
Pity Acclimatisation Practice isn’t a thing we could have a potential 144 sessions – although that would never happen
MichaelN
16th February 2024, 15:38
F1 has way too much practise. No other sport spends over half the time at an event just practising.
Unfortunately, sprint races just don’t work. These are not sprint cars, nor do they have sprint tyres. So that’s not a great solution, especially now that F1 has completely given up on the initial premise, which was to spice up the grid. This was obviously a bad idea, because the only thing that happens in a sprint is that the best teams can fix a bad qualifying result. It never works the other way around.
I understand why they don’t do it, but they might as well skip Friday entirely, have practise and qualifying on Saturday and then, with no Parc ferme, warm-up and the race on Sunday. Giving teams a chance to tune their cars based on their grid position will do more to spice up the races than a sprint ever will.
Alan Dove
16th February 2024, 16:32
No other sport has a complete ban on practise between competitions either.
MichaelN
16th February 2024, 18:22
Indeed, that’s one of the reasons they won’t stop filling the weekends with numerous practise sessions.
AlanD
16th February 2024, 20:17
I can’t think of many other sports where the playing conditions are different every time. Football fields are more or less all the same size, swimming pools are standard lengths, archery always uses the same size targets at the same distances, etc. If you consider tennis, weather conditions change, so a tennis player will spend several days in Australia before the event practising and getting used to the temperatures, but they don’t need to learn the actual court so they all do it in private, at times to suit each competitor. Downhill skiing is more akin to F1 in that every course layout is different and in those sports the competitors do have practice sessions, just like F1.
Pete
18th February 2024, 11:37
Sure but despite that, I can’t think of another sport where competitors spend less time practicing their sport than F1….
S
18th February 2024, 14:35
Teams actually spend many thousands of man-hours practicing their ‘sport’ – although these days it is mostly in the digital realm.
How do you think they come up with their car setups and strategies?
Euro Brun (@eurobrun)
16th February 2024, 15:34
Why is 4am considered a shock headline?
The plus is that qualifying is now not at 4am, and unstead at a more palatable time!
SteveP
16th February 2024, 15:52
Made early in China, why can’t they have an afternoon race like everyone else (mostly)
The effect is to make it silly early in Europe and still rather late in the US.
It strikes me that it suits no-one at all.
ryanoceros (@ryanoceros)
17th February 2024, 2:34
Good morning UK. Welcome to the American/Saudi future of F1.
John S
17th February 2024, 18:22
so is parc ferma not active between the sprint races and the real race qualifying? Meaning teams can make changes to the car?
johns
17th February 2024, 18:24
Law of unintended consequences: So then this means the sprint race can become a test session for the teams, if they want.