The format has one slight tweak for the 2026 campaign because of Cadillac’s arrival as the 11th team on the grid.
Sprint qualifying has three sessions, where now the six slowest cars are eliminated from the first two instead of five – just like we saw in main qualifying for the first time in Melbourne.
These sessions, known as SQ1, SQ2 and SQ3, last 12, 10 and eight minutes respectively.
This will make up the grid for the sprint race, which is 100km.
The top eight finishers score points, from eight for first place to one for eighth spot, which will get added to the overall drivers’ championship standings.
