Formula 1 has officially cancelled its Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
F1’s chances of racing in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia in successive weeks in mid-April have looked slim since the conflict began earlier this month.<\/p>\n
But now the two weekends have been officially cancelled, leaving a hole in F1’s 2026 calendar that won’t be filled. <\/p>\n
It means after the Japanese GP on March 29, there won’t be another F1 race until the Miami Grand Prix on May 3. <\/p>\n
A double header at Suzuka was considered, as was a European venue such as Portimao (which will return to the calendar in 2027) or Imola (which was axed after 2025), stepping in, but a decision has been made not to replace the races. <\/p>\n
The cancelled races won’t be rescheduled for later in the year, either, given how jam-packed the schedule is. <\/p>\n
It means the 2026 season will now take place over 22, rather than 24, races. <\/p>\n
“The FIA will always place the safety and well-being of our community and colleagues first,” FIA president Mohammed Ben Sulayem said.<\/p>\n
“After careful consideration, we have taken this decision with that responsibility firmly in mind. We continue to hope for calm, safety and a swift return to stability in the region, and my thoughts remain with all those affected by these recent events.<\/p>\n
“Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are incredibly important to the ecosystem of our racing season, and I look forward to returning to both as soon as circumstances allow. <\/p>\n
“My sincere thanks to the promoters, our partners, and our colleagues across the championship for the collaborative and constructive approach that has led to this decision.”<\/p>\n
Why races haven’t been replaced <\/p>\n
This isn’t the same scenario as what faced F1 in the COVID pandemic, when series bosses were able to pull a schedule of 17 races together.<\/p>\n
In 2020, F1 needed to get a calendar together to fulfil the minimum number of events that it had guaranteed as part of its big-money TV deals.<\/p>\n
But with 22 races planned, those contracts are fulfilled. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s still an estimated $100million combined loss in hosting fees for F1\u2019s stakeholders.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And teams will lose several million dollars each, but will save some money from not having to travel to and race on those two weekends.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 has officially cancelled its Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix amid the ongoing conflict in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":541339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-541338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=541338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/541339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}