We are rolling into the fifth of 24 Grand Prixes in this year’s Formula 1 schedule with an exciting race at the Shanghai International Circuit in China. So far, Max Verstappen leads the drivers championship points with 77 to his name, closely followed by teammate Checo Perez at 64, and Charles Leclerc at 59. Recently in the news, we learned that Fernando Alonso–the oldest driver on the grid at 42–has extended his contract with Aston Martin to 2026, making Aston Martin, Ferrari, and McLaren the only teams with confirmed driver line ups for 2025 (Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll at Aston Martin, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc at Ferrari, and Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris at McLaren). As the so called “silly season” of F1 comes to start, in which the driver market opens and secret talks between drivers and constructors begin, fans will be watching closely to find out who will be driving with Max Verstappen next year, whether Carlos Sainz will find a seat, and how Toto Wolff will replace the beloved Lewis Hamilton after Lewis’ move to Ferrari.
Enough of the recent news; for fans who are new to F1, here is an overview of what you need to know to enjoy the upcoming GP.
A GP is a Grand Prix, the name for every race on the calendar. There are 24 races, 20 drivers, and 10 teams (also known as “constructors”). Everyone is competing to win as an individual in the Driver’s Championship, but also in the Constructors’ Championship, by winning the most points for their team. In any race, first place gets 25 points, 2nd gets 18, 3rd 15, and so on, with 10th place receiving 1 point; all others, none. The person with the fastest lap gets an extra point. To figure out the starting position in a race, drivers go through Qualifying, normally the Saturday on the same weekend as the race. All 20 drivers take to the grid and attempt to earn the fastest lap time, with the 5 slowest in Q1 (that is, Qualifying 1) starting at the back of the grid. The remaining 15 race again in Q2, with the 5 slowest starting 11th-15th, and the final 10 race in Q3, determining the rest of the starting positions. At some GPs, there is a Sprint along with Qualifying, which is essentially a race without pitstops. The upcoming Chinese GP will be the first of the season to feature a Sprint race. At a normal GP, drivers race somewhere between 44 and 78 laps in a race—the number is changed to ensure the race is approximately 2 hours. They are required to complete at least one pit stop to fulfill the requirement of competing on two tire types. Much of F1 strategy revolves around tire type (either soft, medium, hard, or intermediate in the rain), pit stops, safety cars (released when there is an accident on track), and DRS (the Drag Reduction System, essentially like the mushroom powerup in Mario Kart).
All in all, F1 is a very exciting sport, with only a few important rules to learn before any viewer can watch and appreciate the races. I hope that reading this article will encourage you to watch the Chinese Grand Prix, which can normally be found on cable on the sports channel (but normally only the race will be found here, not qualifying or practice), or on the ESPN app. The race is Sunday at 12:00 am: since races are all over the world, they are frequently at very inconvenient times for people based in the US. If you don’t want to stay up past midnight to watch, don’t worry! The next race is the Miami GP, which will be May 5th at 1:00 pm.