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The 2026 Formula 1 season is soon upon us. It’ll be a really interesting season with new cars, new changes to the hybrid engines, new moveable aerodynamic devices, and new overtake boost rules replacing DRS.

For the 2026 race schedule we see one race gone, some important races moved, and add a new venue! But is it all good?

Get your Google Calendar for the 2026 F1 season right here!

Monaco’s Move

The biggest change in this year’s schedule is the movement of Monaco to June.

• Montreal moves to 24th May, the Indy 500 date!
• Monaco moves to 7th June.
• Barcelona moves to 15th June, the weekend of the Le Mans 24 Hours!

If there are two big races in the world where clashes should be avoided, they are the Indy 500 and the Le Mans 24 Hours. My instinct is to deride the idea of putting a North American F1 race the same day. Let’s look more closely.

Indy 500: Usually Monaco ends a couple of hours before Indy starts. This year Indy runs first, Montreal will start just about when Indy ends. Literally minutes apart. It’ll be close, it’ll rely on no red flags or delays at Indy, not even a lot of Safety Car. But if all goes well only the pre-race and post-race coverage will clash. And that might prove perfectly fine for those at home, ignore the talking heads and just watch the racing.
The downside will be for North American media coverage, especially Canadians who will have to choose where to be.

Le Mans 24 Hours: There will be a direct clash. The 24 Hours usually finishes at 4pm CET. At the time of writing, Barcelona is due to start at 2pm CET. This is clearly not good. If it’s an exciting finish to Le Mans you’ll probably stay on that. If the race is decided in the early hours, you might switch, or second screen F1. Many people will prioritise F1. But let’s be frank, as much as I love Spain, the Barcelona GP is rarely action-packed. It’s often a snoozer. It should be quite easy to follow both races if you have access to both feeds.
Again, it’ll be a choice for those among European media who tend to cross over.

My problem is with the oxygen of publicity and airtime. F1 has a tendency to overwhelm everything else. The Indy 500 and Le Mans 24 Hours deserve to be the biggest stories of their respective weekends. That’s why I’m pleased Monaco is on a weekend where it can be the sole focus (with apologies to IndyCar at Gateway which follows it). It’s the addition of Montreal to that weekend that I don’t like.

But again, with all due respect to the importance and history of the Montreal and Barcelona races, they are not Monaco, or Indy, or Le Mans. This year I wonder if the prestige of Indy and Le Mans might carry their own weight against ‘regular season’ F1 GPs. I have a feeling that will be the case, at least among the fans.

Week To Week

The season starts a week earlier than last year and finishes in the same week.

Last year there was a triple-header in the first three weeks of April. This year, Suzuka moves a week earlier and there’s a week off before the Bahrain-Jeddah desert swing. Easter weekend is left clear.

The changes in May mean last year’s packed month, Miami followed by a triple-header of Imola-Monaco-Barcelona, looks very different. This year we still have Miami to open the month but the only other race in May is Montreal.

Obviously, in logistical terms it makes a lot of sense for Montreal to follow Miami. I just don’t know why it can’t be on one of the free weeks either side.

Most of the rest of the year follows a similar pattern to 2025.

It’s a tough end to the season. COTA, Mexico City, Interlagos run over three weeks, then there’s just a weekend off, before the Las Vegas, Qatar, Abu Dhabi triple.

We had this two years ago, but with two weekends off in between. Last year, there was a week off either side of Interlagos. Both years, everyone in the paddock looked absolutely shattered. They were pushed too far. This year is going to be even harder.

The 12-hour change from Las Vegas to Lusail is particularly brutal and I don’t understand it. I get why LV can’t be moved, you have to fit with the demands of a busy city, but I don’t understand why Lusail has to be the week after.

If we have to have Lusail, and I don’t know why we do because it is a terrible race and an awful way to end the year, could we not move it to join the Bahrain-Saudi races in March? We should really do the same with Abu Dhabi. This would give us races grouped by region, which would be great for travel plans and logistics. As fans you might even try to do as many as possible. But, Abu Dhabi pays a fortune to be the season-closer and that’s important money to F1.

New Venue

The title of the Spanish GP moves to the new street race around a convention centre in Madrid. A track called the MADRING – yes ALL CAPS! On the face of it the layout doesn’t look good, and the location doesn’t sound appealing, but it can be so hard to tell from a map. I hope it’s a better race than my expectations of it so far. I will keep an open mind. This will be the week after the Italian GP at Monza.

The old Spanish GP venue will now host a race called the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix. In future years this will alternate with the Belgian GP at Spa. I have big concerns about this. When it was tried by the German GP it never worked. And so it collapsed. There were other reasons of course, including Schumacher’s retirement. But I fear the same will happen here to both races.

One sad bit of news is that 2026 sees the last Dutch GP for the foreseeable future. A shame. The changes to Zandvoort were brilliant and I love to see such a big excitable crowd there. The Dutch love a party and the energy coming through the TV screen surpasses anywhere else. Even if it means having to listen to bad techno.

We have also lost the Imola race which does not return this year. This is a shame, again the atmosphere there is brilliant and is sometimes worth the race itself perhaps not being quite as good as some others. Who doesn’t love Northern Italy in the Spring?

Sprint Races

The sprints at Spa, COTA and Qatar are gone.

Montreal, Silverstone and Singapore will host their first F1 Sprints. These join Shanghai and Miami which retain theirs from last year.

I think Montreal and Silverstone will work well. I am not so sure about Singapore, I have a feeling everyone will worry about trashing the cars so will play it safe.

There Are Too Many Races

I’ve always argued for quality over quantity. 17 or 18 races, that ballpark felt right. If you want to watch more than that get interested in other championships!

Start with F2 & F3. Move into IndyCar. Sportscars. MotoGP. Touring cars. There’s a world of other motorsport to get into. F1 is the gateway drug. The trouble is, with 24 weeks out of 52 devoted to F1, where’s the time for anything else?

Now we have 24 Grands Prix plus 6 sprints and it’s overwhelming. There is a Grand Prix on 46% of the weekends this year. How are we to have the time to watch other series, never mind hold other interests in our lives?

With six races in seven weeks to end the season, everyone in the paddock looks exhausted and I feel tired just watching it. It ends too late. Personally I would drop Lusail, Miami, Barcelona, Jeddah. These events would not be missed.

F1 should end in mid-November at the latest. The weekend currently occupied by Interlagos is perfect, and what a race to end on that would be.

Let’s keep the good venues and make them great events.

2026 F1 Calendar

You can add the 2026 F1 schedule to your calendars here!