F1, Chinese GP: here’s how the sprint race changes

The 100 km mini race has undergone various changes from 2023, starting on Friday: unlike last year, there will be the Sprint Shootout (at 9.30), i.e. the mini qualification (SQ1 of 12 minutes, SQ2 of 10 minutes, SQ3 of 8 minutes) which will determine the starting grid of the sprint itself. The mini-race of 100 km and approximately half an hour will take place on Saturday morning (at 5 in Italy), while in the afternoon (at 9 in Italy) there will be the traditional qualification for the deployment of the actual GP on Sunday (always at 9 Italian).

The most important change, apart from the timing of the sessions, concerns the parc fermé rule, the phase in which it is no longer possible to intervene on the cars to make changes: last year you entered parc fermé already with the qualifications of the Friday afternoon, this year the parc fermé starts on Friday afternoon with the mini qualification and ends at the end of the sprint race. In order to allow the teams to make any changes and repairs before returning to parc fermé in traditional qualifying until the end of the GP on Sunday.