In the sprint format of Formula 1, teams get only one practice session to prepare their cars before the sprint qualifying and race. This means they have to use different plans in this session compared to regular races.
During the practice session in China, Lance Stroll from Alonso’s Aston Martin team had the fastest time. Teams focused on long runs at first and then did qualifying simulations later.
For sprint events, the number of tires given to teams is reduced from 13 to 12. Instead of having two sets of hard tires, three sets of medium tires, and eight sets of soft tires, they now have four medium tires and six soft tires, plus the usual two hard tires.
After the main race in Shanghai, Fernando Alonso talked about the lack of tires in the practice session. He said, “I think more tires will be good because in FP1 it is a game of who can run less and who uses fewer sets of tires.” He also criticized the penalty he got for an incident with Ferrari driver Carlos Sainz in the first race.
Alonso mentioned that the next sprint weekend in Miami will have the same tire issue. He said, “So ideally, you would not run in FP1 to keep all the tires alive and you don’t run the sprint race to save penalty points on your license.”
Mercedes driver George Russell liked the new sprint format but agreed with Alonso about the tires. He suggested giving all teams the same number of tires for practice to make it fair.
In the previous practice sessions in 2024 that didn’t have any interruptions, the total number of laps was 422 in Bahrain and 471 in Jeddah. In China, despite losing time due to a grass fire, teams managed to complete 453 laps.
