There are a total of five rounds with the championship kicking off in March at Circuit of the Americas. This event is followed by races at Virginia International Raceway and Lime Rock Park. The penultimate rounds are at Portland International Raceway and the season ends at Utah Motorsports Campus in August. The races are 60-minutes in length and require a mandatory pit-stop for a driver change between the 25 and 35-minute mark of the contest.

The SprintX Championship has three classes:

• Grand Touring X (GT-X) – This is the series quickest class and includes cars that predominantly fall into the FIA GT3 category. These are two-wheel drive vehicles that may use normally aspirated or turbocharged engines which produce approximately 500 horsepower. Examples of cars competing in this category include: Porsche 911 GT3 R, Lamborghini Huracan GT3, Mercedes AMG GT3, McLaren 650S GT3, Callaway Corvette C7 GT3-R, Bentley Continental GT3, Audi R8 LMS and Ferrari 488 GT3.
• Grand Touring Cup X (GTC-X) – The GT Cup class was originally for 2015-2016 Porsche 991 GT Cup cars. It now includes vehicles from other spec series – the Lamborghini Super Trofeo (Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo) and Ferrari Challenge (Ferrari 458 Challenge) championships.
• Grand Touring Sport X (GTS-X) – The cars in this class are similar to the GT vehicles but have more preparation restrictions. Drivetrain layouts include all-wheel-drive and front and rear-wheel drive. These cars can be powered by forced induction or normally aspirated motors. In previous years, the GTS class was mainly comprised of Ford, Chevrolet and Porsche products. In 2016, this category witnessed an influx of FIA GT4 vehicles which proved to be very competitive – Chevrolet Camaro GT4, McLaren 570S GT4, Porsche Cayman GT4 CS-MR, Audi R8 LMS GT4, Ginetta G55 GT4, BMW M4 GT4, Audi R8 LMS GT4, Mercedes-AMG GT4, Panoz Avezzano GT4 and SIN R1 GT4.

SprintX cars are prepared to the same rules as those competing in the 50-minute Sprint races. Due to the popularity of the GTS/GT4 category, they would have their race group. Grand Touring X and Grand Touring Cup X would compete in the same contest.

As the championship features a two-driver format which includes professional and sportsman racers, there was a need to categorize competitors. Within the three classes, the driver combinations are grouped as Professional/Professional (Pro/Pro), Professional/Amateur (Pro/Am), Amateur/Amateur (Am/Am) and some competitors will compete solo – points are awarded accordingly.

The opening rounds of the Pirelli World Challenge SprintX season took place during the Grand Prix of Texas weekend. Thirty-eight SprintX Grand Touring Sport teams competed in the two sixty-minute races around Circuit of the Americas’ twenty-turn 3.4-mile road course.