F1 agrees major sprint weekend changes for 2024 season

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F1 agrees major sprint weekend changes for 2024 season

There has been much debate recently about how best to utilise the sprint format

Sam Cook Digital Journalist

Sports Journalist who has been covering motorsport since 2023

Thursday 8 February 2024 12:57

Formula 1 have agreed changes to the format of sprint weekends, in the latest meeting of the F1 commission.

The weekends will now feature practice and sprint qualifying on a Friday, an action-packed Saturday with both the sprint race and qualifying for the main race, before the main event on a Sunday.

This new format has been deliberated upon at great length, following huge criticism about the way in which the weekends were able to operate in 2023.

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With just one practice session on a Friday before qualifying for the main race, drivers that encountered problems on a Friday were often out of position for Sunday's race.

As well as this, there was the opposite problem of team's treating Saturday's sprint as a completely separate entity, and often sacrificing it in the hope of gaining better data for Sunday's main race.

The scramble into the first corner is something that F1 fans get to see twice during sprint weekends

David Croft has his own plan for F1's sprint weekends

F1 sprint weekend changes

With there being six sprint events in the mammoth 2024 season, the F1 commission have acted to hopefully improve the spectacle for both fans and the teams.

While there has been no indication as of yet as to whether the points distribution will be changed in order to make a Saturday more competitive during sprint weekends, this format change is certainly a step in the right direction.

Drivers and pundits seemingly have lots of different views about how sprint races can be improved, with Sky Sports F1 commentator David Croft even suggesting recently that a separate world championship should be considered for sprint events.

Mercedes Formula 1 qualifying F1 commission