Formula 1 has two kinds of race weekend in 2026: the standard format with three practice sessions, and the sprint format with an extra short race on Saturday. This post explains both, lists the six sprint rounds of the season, and covers qualifying and points. The session lists come from the season's published event data.
What changed for 2026
The 2026 season started with new technical regulations for both the cars and the power units. The grid also grew to 11 teams and 22 cars, with Cadillac joining as the new entry. The weekend formats themselves stayed the same as in recent seasons.
A standard weekend
Most rounds follow this schedule, in local time:
- Friday: Practice 1 and Practice 2, one hour each.
- Saturday: Practice 3, one hour, then qualifying.
- Sunday: the Grand Prix.
Qualifying sets the starting grid in three knockout stages. In Q1 every car runs and the slowest drop out. Q2 removes the next slowest group. The ten fastest drivers then go into Q3, and the quickest lap in Q3 takes pole position. The race itself is the fewest laps that add up to more than 305 kilometres, with Monaco shorter, and it cannot run longer than two hours of racing.
A sprint weekend
Six rounds of the 2026 calendar use the sprint format: China, Miami, Canada, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Singapore. The schedule changes to:
- Friday: one practice session, then sprint qualifying.
- Saturday: the sprint race, then qualifying for the Grand Prix.
- Sunday: the Grand Prix.
Sprint qualifying works like normal qualifying but with shorter stages. The sprint is about 100 kilometres, roughly a third of a Grand Prix, and has no compulsory pit stop. The sprint result does not affect the Grand Prix grid; that is set by Saturday's qualifying.
How points are scored
| Position | Grand Prix | Sprint |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | 25 | 8 |
| 2nd | 18 | 7 |
| 3rd | 15 | 6 |
| 4th | 12 | 5 |
| 5th | 10 | 4 |
| 6th | 8 | 3 |
| 7th | 6 | 2 |
| 8th | 4 | 1 |
| 9th | 2 | 0 |
| 10th | 1 | 0 |
The extra point for the fastest lap was removed from 2025, so a driver's total for a weekend is the race points plus, on sprint weekends, the sprint points. The same points go to the team for each of its two drivers in the constructors' championship.
The rest of the 2026 season
After the Singapore sprint weekend in October, six rounds remain, all on the standard format: the United States Grand Prix in Austin, Mexico City, São Paulo, Las Vegas, Qatar and the season finale in Abu Dhabi on December 6, 2026.
Las Vegas runs at night on Saturday local time, which is early Sunday morning in UTC. Qatar and Abu Dhabi are evening races in local time, and Singapore is a night race. The Americas rounds start in the late afternoon or evening in UTC.
Following a weekend on Methstreams
On the F1 page each Grand Prix has one main row that stays the same from first practice to the end of the race. Its title changes to the next session as the weekend goes on, so a single link works for all of it. Every session time is shown on your own clock, which matters most on weekends like Las Vegas where the race falls on a different day depending on where you are.
