F1 Sprint Format Explained: How the Singapore GP Weekend Works (2026)
How does an F1 sprint weekend work? One practice, sprint qualifying, the 100 km sprint, qualifying and the race: the full Singapore timetable in UK time, the points (8 for a sprint win, 25 for a race win), the parc ferme rule, the six sprint weekends of 2026 and exactly how the sprint can help Kimi Antonelli in the championship.
This is a sprint weekend in Singapore, which means an extra race on Saturday morning, at ten o'clock UK time.
There are thirty three points on offer across the weekend, so by Sunday night it could move the title race.
Sprints in 2026
There are six sprint weekends in twenty twenty six.
They are in Shanghai, Miami, Montreal, Silverstone and Zandvoort, and then Singapore.
Montreal, Zandvoort and Singapore are all hosting a sprint for the very first time.
Singapore is the last sprint of the season, and there have been five so far.
George Russell has won three of them, in China, Canada and the Netherlands.
Lando Norris won in Miami, and Kimi Antonelli won his first sprint at Silverstone.
The weekend in order
Sprint weekends have just one practice session, and in Singapore it starts at half past nine on Friday morning, UK time.
Sprint qualifying follows at half past one.
The times look odd because Singapore is seven hours ahead of the UK at the moment, as Britain is still on summer time.
So half past four in the afternoon in Singapore is half past nine in the morning at home.
On Saturday, the sprint starts at ten in the morning UK time and lasts about half an hour.
Grand Prix qualifying follows at two o'clock UK time.
And the race itself is on Sunday at one o'clock UK time, which is eight in the evening in Singapore.
The sessions
Sprint qualifying decides the starting grid for the sprint.
It has three parts, lasting twelve minutes, then ten, then eight, and the slowest drivers are knocked out in the first two.
There is a tyre rule too: the medium tyre is mandatory in the first two parts, and the soft tyre in the last.
The sprint itself is a hundred kilometres, which is twenty one laps at Marina Bay.
That is about a third of the distance of the grand prix, and there is no mandatory pit stop, so it is a flat out dash.
It has a one hour time limit, although it should take around half an hour.
Then Saturday qualifying sets the grid for the race, and only that session decides pole position for Sunday.
The sprint result does not change the race grid at all, so it only adds championship points.
That is why a sprint weekend has two separate grids and two separate sets of points.
There is also a parc ferme rule, and it is stricter on a sprint weekend.
From the start of sprint qualifying until the end of the sprint, the teams cannot change the set-up of their cars.
With only one practice session, they have to get the set-up right straight away, and then they can make changes before qualifying.
The points
A sprint win is worth eight points, and the points run down to one point for eighth place.
A grand prix win is worth twenty five, and the points run all the way down to tenth.
So the race is worth more than three times as much as the sprint, but the sprint still counts.
So a perfect Singapore weekend is worth thirty three points: eight from the sprint and twenty five from the race.
That is more than a driver can score in any other weekend this year without a sprint.
And it is why the sprint matters, even though it is over in half an hour.
How it helps Kimi
Now, how can the sprint help Kimi Antonelli?
He leads Russell by eighty four points, so every sprint point matters.
He cannot win the title in Singapore, but the sprint can widen his lead before the next round in Austin.
Here is what could happen to the lead after Singapore.
If Antonelli wins the sprint and the race, and Russell is second both times, the lead grows to ninety two.
In the best case, Antonelli wins both and Russell scores nothing, which makes it a hundred and seventeen.
If Russell wins both and Antonelli is second both times, the lead falls to seventy six.
And if Antonelli scores nothing while Russell wins both, the lead drops to fifty one.
The sprint brings risk for Antonelli as well as reward.
It is another session where a crash can ruin his weekend, and he knows that from Baku, where he crashed in qualifying and started sixteenth.
But it also gives him a second qualifying session, so one poor lap does not decide the whole weekend.
And his sprint form is mixed: one win, a third place in Canada, a fourth in the Netherlands, and a sixth in Miami after a penalty.
SOURCES: Motor Sport Magazine, Aston Martin F1 (sprint guide), Sky Sports, Formula1.com, GPFans, Wikipedia. Music: Kevin MacLeod (CC BY 4.0), see credits.
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