Miami will host a sprint race weekend in 2024
Miami will host a Formula 1 sprint race weekend for the first time in 2024.
Formula 1 announced the locations of next season’s six sprint races and both Miami and the Circuit of the Americas in Austin are included on the list. They’re joined by the Chinese Grand Prix, the Austrian Grand Prix, the Sao Paulo Grand Prix and the Qatar Grand Prix.
It’s the fourth season of F1’s sprint format, which includes one practice session before qualifying for the Grand Prix itself on Friday and sprint qualifying and the sprint race itself on Saturday before the main race on Sunday. Typical race weekends include three practice sessions and race qualifying over the first two days before the race on Sunday.
F1 said that “according to research by Nielsen spanning 21 markets, the 2023 Azerbaijan Grand Prix saw the broadcast audience for qualifying increase by 83% vs. the 2022 second practice session while it was +139% for the US Grand Prix and +34% for the Belgian Grand Prix.” Sprint weekends were implemented in 2020 as a way to increase interest in race weekends and add variety to the F1 calendar. The winner of a sprint race gets eight points while the eighth-place finisher gets a point.
Miami and China are the two new sprint locations for 2024; they replace races in Azerbaijan and Belgium. The Miami Grand Prix is entering its third year on the Formula 1 calendar. Both races have been won by three-time defending world champion Max Verstappen.
Details regarding any changes to the sprint race format are still to be determined as possible tweaks have been discussed. Those potential changes even include a grid inversion of some sort to help increase passing by putting slower cars at the front.
