All F1 Grands Prix events have three unique sessions: practice, grid-setting qualifying and the race itself.
From their debut three years ago, though, sprint weekends introduced a new session: a shortened “sprint” around the circuit that offered both grid setting and World Championship points. Instead of qualifying Saturday and racing Sunday, drivers would simply sprint Saturday, and the results of the sprint would set the grid for Sunday’s race.
Sprint races are controversial among F1 fans. Some adore the additional content they provide while others complain that they clutter race weekends with meaningless events. After all, if “sprints” are all about finding the fastest car, doesn’t the race find it already?
F1 took that feedback to heart and changed around sprint weekends for 2023. Here’s a breakdown of the big changes to look out for this weekend in Azerbaijan:
Two qualifying sessions. Qualifying, or “qualy” in F1 parlance, is a fast, wild, asynchronous three-part timed shootout, and it’s always a fan favorite, so F1’s giving us more of it. Instead of qualifying for the sprint and using its finishing order for the race grid, the drivers will now qualify twice: once for the sprint and once for the race itself. F1 is calling sprint qualifying a “sprint shoot-out,”and it’s requiring drivers to use the same tires to keep things fair — mediums for the first two runs and softs for the third.
Limited practice. Two qualy sessions are great, but there’s only so much time in a weekend, so F1 is removing practice sessions in favor of competitive racing. This is great for fans but problematic for drivers, as they leverage every second of practice to test setups, fuel loads, strategies and tires. We may see less-than-perfect racing in Azerbaijan as a result of this change.
Grid penalty shuffles. If a driver replaces a key car part or commits an offense against another driver, he is often required to take a grid penalty and start at the back of the pack in the race. For sprint weekends like this one in Azerbaijan, anything that happens during the sprint shoot-out will only affect the sprint. All other infringements will be applied to the race itself.
With that in mind, this weekend’s Azerbaijan Grand Prix schedule will look like this:
- Friday: Practice, race qualifying
- Saturday: Sprint shoot-out, sprint
- Sunday: Race
Still confused? Don’t worry — you’re not alone. But with future sprint weekends scheduled in Austria, Belgium, Qatar, Austin and Brazil, there will be plenty of opportunities for everyone to get the hang of it.
