Practice sessions
Practice sessions, officially called free practice, are where teams get the car working for that circuit. On a standard weekend there are three, each an hour long: FP1 and FP2 on Friday, and FP3 on Saturday morning. On a sprint weekend there's only FP1.
Nothing in practice counts towards the result. The order at the end is simply each driver's fastest lap, so it gives a rough idea of pace and no more.
What teams are trying to do
Every circuit has its own mix of corners, kerbs, bumps and weather, so the car arrives with a set-up based on simulator work and needs adjusting. In practice, teams change things like wing levels, ride height, suspension stiffness and brake balance, and listen to the driver's feedback.
They also need to understand the tyres. Pirelli brings three dry compounds to each race, and teams want to know how long each one lasts and how fast it fades. That shapes their race strategy.
Drivers use the time to learn the track, find braking points and get comfortable before qualifying, especially at a new venue.
Short runs and long runs
You'll hear commentators talk about two kinds of running:
- Short runs (also called qualifying simulations) are one or two flying laps on fresh soft tyres with little fuel. These produce the fastest times on the timesheet.
- Long runs (race simulations) are 10 laps or more on heavier fuel. The lap times are slower, but they tell teams far more about race pace and tyre wear.
Because teams run different fuel loads, tyres and engine settings, the timesheet can be very misleading. A team at the bottom might simply have been doing long runs all session.
Testing parts
Practice is one of the few places teams can try new parts on track, because testing is so restricted. You may see:
- Aero rakes: big grids of sensors mounted behind a wheel or the sidepod, measuring airflow.
- Flow-vis paint: a bright fluorescent liquid painted on the bodywork that dries in streaks, showing how the air moves over the car.
- Two cars running different versions of a part so the engineers can compare them.
FP1 and young drivers
Teams have to give some practice running to inexperienced drivers. In 2026, each car must be driven in FP1 or FP2 by a driver who has started no more than two Grands Prix, on two occasions during the season. That's four sessions per team across the year. These drivers need a super licence, carry their own race number and use the regular driver's tyre allocation. See rookies and reserve drivers.
Tyre testing in FP2
At some races, Pirelli brings extra sets of experimental tyres to test future designs. When that happens, FP2 is extended to 90 minutes and teams run the test tyres for part of the session, so the times from FP2 are even less useful than usual.
Red flags and practice starts
If a session is stopped with a red flag, the clock usually keeps running in practice, so time lost is gone. Qualifying is different: there, the clock stops.
When the chequered flag falls at the end of each practice session, drivers can do one more lap and then a practice start from a grid slot at the end of the pit straight. That's why you'll see cars stopping on the grid after the session.
Tyres you have to hand back
Teams don't keep every tyre they're given for the weekend. After each practice session they have to return a set number of sets to Pirelli, which forces them to choose carefully which compounds to use and when. The details are on the tyre rules page.