There are three “F1 Sprint” weekends where the format is slightly different. The Emilia Romagna, Austrian and Brazilian GP weekends are Sprint events this season.

The Sprint Qualifying

Here’s how it’s going to work for the Sprint weekends:

• Friday: One practice session, then the regular Qualifying (Q1, Q2, Q3) session.
• Saturday: Another practice session, then the “Sprint Qualifying race”
• Sunday: The usual Grand Prix

And so the Friday qualifying session follows the format we’re used to seeing on Saturdays. The result of the Friday qualifying decides the starting grid for the Saturday “Sprint Qualifying” race. And then the result of the Sprint Qualifying race decides the grid for the proper Grand Prix on Sunday. Got that? Good!

No? Read it again, it really doesn’t make much sense to us as to why this format still exists – it’s not done much in during the 3 trials in 2021, but here it is again.

The Fantasy GP game format

Due to the fact that the “Sprint Qualifying” is still sort of a trial thing, we’re not changing the whole format of Fantasy GP, so it will work as usual, with the game closing on Saturday:

• Fantasy GP will lock as usual on the Saturday – at the start of the Sprint Qualifying race.
• Prediction Points for Pole Position will be awarded for correctly predicting the driver who starts the main Grand Prix in 1st place – i.e. the winner of the Sprint Qualifying race (caveat, as per usual rules, it is the driver who starts the race in 1st place on the grid on Sunday).
• Race, Qualifying and Bonus Points will be awarded as usual, based on the main Grand Prix on Sunday.

In short, if you ignore the fact that Saturday is a Sprint Qualifying race and think of it as normal qualifying, the format of Fantasy GP is as before. Get those team changes and predictions in before the start of the Sprint Qualifying race!