The Formula 1 Calendar ThreadFormula 1 

  • Thread starter Jimlaad43
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The Canadian Grand Prix start time is now halfway through the Indy 500. With such a gap either side, how did they manage to create such a stupid clash?

Fezzik
The regional blocs are better, but going from Imola (with its faults) to that horrid business park race in Madrid is a terrible downgrade. Hopefully something good replaces Catalunya in 2027 to make up for it.
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The F2 and F3 calendars were released, and Madrid is hosting the season finale of F3. Way to produce a terrible circuit with difficulty to overtake as the championship decider...
 
Jimlaad43
The Canadian Grand Prix start time is now halfway through the Indy 500. With such a gap either side, how did they manage to create such a stupid clash?
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Didn't the Indy 500 clash with the Monaco GP for years?
 
Fezzik
The regional blocs are better, but going from Imola (with its faults) to that horrid business park race in Madrid is a terrible downgrade. Hopefully something good (an actual race track) replaces Catalunya in 2027 to make up for it, when Zandvoort also drops off the schedule and Spa goes into a rotation. A 2nd Saudi race is almost guaranteed but maybe at that point there will still be room for Imola/Sepang/Istanbul/etc.
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Jimlaad43
The F2 and F3 calendars were released, and Madrid is hosting the season finale of F3. Way to produce a terrible circuit with difficulty to overtake as the championship decider...
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I'll hold judgement on Madrid until we actually see a race there, it's being written off already and we haven't even seen a 2026 F1 car, nevermind see how they race/perform on circuit in racing conditions. Vegas was written off the same way and delivered an absolute banger on debut.

Imola is a great circuit of course, but it isn't great for racing, would it have been better with the 2026 cars? Maybe, but hosting isn't free.
 
MagpieRacer
I'll hold judgement on Madrid until we actually see a race there, it's being written off already and we haven't even seen a 2026 F1 car, nevermind see how they race/perform on circuit in racing conditions. Vegas was written off the same way and delivered an absolute banger on debut.
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You have more patience and restraint than me. I've seen the CGI onboard laps. I've seen Carlos' demo in the Williams. It could've been anywhere in the world, completely devoid of any character whatsoever. Even if Vegas had been a bore at least it had the spectacle of the Strip, Miami has the kitsch and fake marina, Baku has the superfast straight and the Old City section. I see no redeeming features for the Boring.

Hopefully I will be proved completely wrong and it'll be an absolute cracker. I'm just a little depressed, as an oldschool fan, that we're almost at the point where dedicated race tracks will be a minority of the calendar.
 
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Montreal's contract extended until 2035. Meanwhile the Thai government have approved a billion dollar budget to bring a race to a street track in Bangkok.
 
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Fezzik
Montreal's contract extended until 2035. Meanwhile the Thai government have approved a billion dollar budget to bring a race to a street track in Bangkok.
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Disappointing that they want another street circuit. Chang International is already Grade 1 and is an underrated gem of a circuit that would be epic for F1 to race at.
 
Jimlaad43
Disappointing that they want another street circuit. Chang International is already Grade 1 and is an underrated gem of a circuit that would be epic for F1 to race at.
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Not enough money to showcase F1 at a track. They apparently need to have it right next to buildings.
 
Jimlaad43
Disappointing that they want another street circuit. Chang International is already Grade 1 and is an underrated gem of a circuit that would be epic for F1 to race at.
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Infrastructure would probably be the reason/excuse.

Hopefully whatever they come up with is a bit more promising than Madrid. I was actually reading a few guides to Bangkok travel the other day and they all mentioned the horrendous traffic, so shutting some of the city down for a F1 week will be an interesting exercise.
 
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Fezzik
Infrastructure would probably be the reason/excuse.

Hopefully whatever they come up with is a bit more promising than Madrid. I was actually reading a few guides to Bangkok travel the other day and they all mentioned the horrendous traffic, so shutting some of the city down for a F1 week will be an interesting exercise.
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Planned Chatuchak Park, Queen Sirikit Park and Wachirabenchathat Park (Rot Fai Park) would more like Melbourne than Baku/Vegas/Monaco.

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FIA have approved Kyalami’s plans to bring the circuit up to grade 1 standard - no layout changes, mostly safety-related (kerbs, runoffs, etc).

Still a longshot to return to the calendar as I don’t think they have the private funding or government support for the immense hosting fees, unlike Thailand and Rwanda.
 
Let's not forget Kyalami probably competing with a city race directly in Cape Town right at the waterfront where the wealth people are living. Directly at a harbour and a short trip to an airport. Guess when they can finance it this will be the choice.
 
Fezzik
FIA have approved Kyalami’s plans to bring the circuit up to grade 1 standard - no layout changes, mostly safety-related (kerbs, runoffs, etc).

Still a longshot to return to the calendar as I don’t think they have the private funding or government support for the immense hosting fees, unlike Thailand and Rwanda.
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It looks to be a close race between South Africa and Thailand in securing an F1 race. I personally would like to see Africa to have at least one race in each season.
 
toastet
Let's not forget Kyalami probably competing with a city race directly in Cape Town right at the waterfront where the wealth people are living. Directly at a harbour and a short trip to an airport. Guess when they can finance it this will be the choice.
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Maybe not
It has now emerged that one of the three bidders, the Cape Town Grand Prix SA – which had plans for a street circuit around Cape Town's Green Point district and DHL stadium – has already been disqualified after it questioned the sense of an opaque $10m Rand ($560,000) fee to submit an expression of interest.
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As the article points out Thailand is the runaway leader anyway because they have the committed funding from the government.

One other little tidbit - Istanbul with a chance of returning in 2027 to fill a short term hole in the calendar, Barcelona and Imola also in the mix.
 
Fezzik
Maybe not

As the article points out Thailand is the runaway leader anyway because they have the committed funding from the government.

One other little tidbit - Istanbul with a chance of returning in 2027 to fill a short term hole in the calendar, Barcelona and Imola also in the mix.
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Wouldn't mind seeing Istanbul back, should be a good one for the new generation of cars.
 
2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix will be a Saturday race, due to a national holiday. All race events (media, FP, quali) move up a day.
 
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Fezzik
2026 Azerbaijan Grand Prix will be a Saturday race, due to a national holiday. All race events (media, FP, quali) move up a day.
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Moved due to a day of national mourning in remembrance of...

Oh

The 2020 Nagorno-Kharabakh war they started to steal Armenian land. Yeah good one...
 
Am i the only one who thinks the F1 Sprint Races get totally ignored?

I was just browsing through 2025 British GP thread for this weekends GP and someone mentioned, and i'm paraphrasing this as i'm not having a go at them - least of all because it's all very true, how 'Hamilton needs to have a good result, preferably a win, to help his time at Ferrari'. He's not had a great season so far and neither has Ferrari, as a whole. But he did qualify 1st for the Sprint race at China and went on to win it! Yet it might as well of never happened as far as history sees it.

The season's page on Wikipedia barely gives the Sprint Races any mention. F1's own website has a section on Sprint Races and how they fit in with the GP weekends, but you'll struggle to find their results on the 'Results' page. Yes a Sprint win only gives you the same points as a 6th place GP finish, but they're all valuble points the end of the day and they mean a lot to the teams and drivers championships. Yet they're very much a foot note.

I said this when they were first announced, but why didn't they just use the Sprint Races, for the six weekends that run them, as a replacement for Qualifying on the Saturday. With the sprint results providing the grid order for Sunday's GP. They can still give out the same points as they do. It puts less stress on the cars, uses less tyres and gives the team personnel a bit of a breather.

The Sprint only gives points upto 8th (rather than upto 10th in a GP) so Sprint weekends only throw scraps towards the lower teams on the grid for the same amount of effort. It almost creates a two-tier championship where the lower teams have even less chance of a points haul. At least with a short race instead of regular qualifying the lower teams have a better chance of a higher grid position for that weekends GP - due to a higher probability of other cars getting damaged or retiring because of reliability issues that a race provides over the more regimented qualifying session.
 
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The scheduling doesn't help, with half the sprints in the last 6 races of the year.
 

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