F1 GP China 2024, the Grand Prix programme: dates, times, circuit

F1 returns to the track after the break for the fifth round of the season: from today, Friday 19th, to Sunday 21st April in fact the Formula 1 World Championship 2024 is on stage on the circuit Shanghai for the Chinese GP. The the program of the fifth stage of the season is not the traditional one because there will be there on the Chinese weekend first Sprint Race of the year with a completely new format: on Friday the first and only free practice session (FP1) will be held and the new qualifying for the sprint race which will then take place on Saturday morning, followed by the traditional qualifying which will establish the grid starting point of the canonical 56-lap race which awards the most conspicuous amount of points valid for the world rankings.

Due to the time difference for us Italians not even the times of the various sessions will be traditional on the Shanghai track where F1 returns to race five years after the last time. The Chinese GP will therefore be an opportunity to see if the hierarchies outlined so far with the Red Bulls of Verstappen and Perez leading the way ahead of the Ferraris of Leclerc and Sainz will also be confirmed over the weekend with the new Sprint Race format. And even if McLaren, Mercedes and Aston Martin manage to close the gap compared to the two teams that have excelled so far at the start of the 2024 World Championship.

Free practice and the new Sprint Qualifying today

FP1 for the Chinese Grand Prix starts todayFriday 19 April 2024: the only free practice session in Shanghai is scheduled for 05:30 (Italian time). There will be a follow-up the brand new Qualifying of the Sprint Race which begins at 09:30 Italian time. This decrees the grid for the first seasonal Sprint race on Saturday. Free practice and Sprint Qualifying can be seen live on Sky only and while only for the qualifying session there will also be a deferred broadcast on TV8.

The Sprint Race and traditional Qualifying on Saturday

The 2024 Formula 1 Chinese GP program then continues Saturday 20 April with the first Sprint Race of the season whose start is set for 05:00 (Italian time) and will last about an hour. After the mini-race it will be the turn of the Traditional qualifications, divided between Q1, Q2 and Q3, which will decide the author of the pole position and the starting grid for Sunday’s race. The qualification it starts when it is 09:00 in Italy. The Sprint Race and Qualifying on Saturday will be visible live on Sky and deferred on TV8.

Sunday’s race

Sunday 21 April 2024 instead it takes place on the Shanghai circuit the Chinese GP race of Formula 1: departure is scheduled for 09:00 (Italian time). The live broadcast of the Chinese F1 race will be visible on Sky channels, while on TV8 the fifth race of the season will be able to be seen on a delayed basis.

The Shanghai circuit

After five years of absence the Shanghai circuit returns to host the Chinese Formula 1 GP. In reality, however, it will be an absolute first for drivers and teams given that ground effect single-seaters (introduced in 2022) and 18″ tires have never been raced here. The track, 5.451 km long which made its first appearance on the F1 calendar in 2004, will however be the same as always with 16 curves (some very slow like the combination 1-3, 6 and 14, others fast like the “S” made up of 7 and 8) and two main straights to which the two DRS zones also correspond, i.e. the start/finish one and the one, over a kilometer long, which connects curve 13, slightly elevated, to 14).

As regards the brakes, as highlighted by the official Formula 1 supplier Brembo, the Shanghai circuit is a medium-demanding circuit for the brakes with 9 braking sections and 16 seconds per lap in which the drivers will be asked to apply the brakes on their single-seaters. The most critical point is turn 14where the single-seaters go from 318 km/h to 72 km/h in just 113 meters covered in 2.66 seconds with the drivers subjected to 4.7 Gs of deceleration.

Only three of the drivers who will be on track this weekend have already raced and won on the Chinese track: Lewis Hamilton who triumphed on six occasions in Shanghai (including the last edition held in 2019), Fernando Alonso who won in two circumstances and Daniel Ricciardo winner in 2018. To find the track lap record in the race however, we must go back to the first Chinese GP in history, that of 2004, when Michael Schumacher managed to complete a round of the Shanghai circuit in 1:32.238.