A Grand Prix is a three-day event, Friday to Sunday. Every session has a job, and knowing what each one is for tells you what to watch for.
The standard weekend
- Practice 1, 2 and 3 - an hour each. Teams test set-ups, try the tyres and gather data. Lap times matter less than they look: nobody shows you everything on a Friday.
- Qualifying on Saturday sets the starting order for the race. See how qualifying works.
- The Grand Prix on Sunday: the shortest number of laps that exceeds 305 km (Monaco is the exception), with no more than two hours of racing.
The sprint weekend
Six weekends in 2026 use the Sprint format. There is only one practice session, then a second, shorter competition is squeezed in before the main event:
- Friday: Practice 1, then Sprint Qualifying, which sets the grid for the sprint.
- Saturday: the Sprint - about 100 km, roughly a third of a Grand Prix, with no compulsory pit stop - then normal Qualifying for Sunday.
- Sunday: the Grand Prix, exactly as on a standard weekend.
Parc fermé
Once qualifying begins the cars enter parc fermé conditions: teams can no longer change the set-up beyond a short list of allowed adjustments. Whatever compromise they chose for qualifying, they race with it. That is why Friday’s work matters even when the lap times do not.