F1 Explained: How does practice work?

Hamilton during Bahrain testing — Photo: © IMAGO

F1 Explained

F1 Explained: How does practice work?

Here's all you need to know about free practice sessions in Formula 1

Yara Elshebiny

Monday 3 June 2024 16:57 Updated: 16:00

The standard Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend spans three days, with practice kicking off the action.

On Friday, as the exciting race weekend kicks off, there are two one-hour practice sessions held throughout the day - Free Practice 1 (FP1) and Free Practice 2 (FP2).

These sessions provide teams and drivers with the opportunity to become familiar with the track, fine-tune their car setups, evaluate tyre performance, and gather crucial data to enhance their performance.

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The following day, the action continues with the final practice run, FP3, which marks the beginning of Saturday's activities. This session offers teams and drivers a final chance to perfect their setups and make any last-minute adjustments before the crucial qualifying session later in the day, which sets the grid order for Sunday's race.

Why practice is important in F1?

As mentioned earlier, the practice allows teams to refine their car setups and ensure everything is optimised before parc ferme conditions begin, which marks the point when most work on the car is prohibited.

It is especially crucial for newer races on the calendar or races returning after a hiatus where there's no recent data to draw from.

Take China, for example. After a five-year absence due to COVID-19 pandemic, the passage of time and regulation changes turned the Shanghai International Circuit into a new track for this generation of F1 machinery.

Every practice session was now paramount for teams to gather crucial data and understand how their cars would react to the unique demands of the resurfaced tarmac and the track's characteristics.

The new Sprint format introduced for the 2024 season onwards featured a condensed schedule with only one free practice session before qualifying for the short Sprint race. This limited window reduced the time teams had to experiment with configurations and find the sweet spot for their cars.