{"id":832174,"date":"2026-07-29T22:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/832174\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T22:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T22:45:09","slug":"formula-1-ceo-stefano-domenicali-says-september-call-on-end-of-season-in-europe-if-no-qatar-uae-races","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/832174\/","title":{"rendered":"Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali says September call on end of season in Europe if no Qatar, UAE races"},"content":{"rendered":"

Formula 1 will end the season in Europe if races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi cannot be held, and has set a mid-September deadline, the Liberty Media-owned sport’s chief executive Stefano Domenicali has said.<\/p>\n

Races scheduled for Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in April were called off due to the war in Iran, with Malaysia’s Sepang circuit now due to host the latter on October 4, with the Gulf kingdom paying most of the costs.<\/p>\n

The FIA-sanctioned World \u200cEndurance Championship (WEC) has already moved its last two rounds in Qatar and Bahrain to Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya and Italy’s Monza in October and November.<\/p>\n

“We will take the maximum time for us to see how the situation will develop and we will take the \u200cdecision at the right time,” Domenicali told reporters on Wednesday, local time.<\/p>\n

“The deadline for the decision of any possible change of the actual calendar \u2060is the middle of September.<\/p>\n

“For us today, the races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi \u200care confirmed. By the way, they are already sold out,” he added.<\/p>\n

“If this will not \u200cbe possible, the end of the season will be in Europe because we cannot go in other places.”<\/p>\n

Qatar is due to host F1 on November 29 and Abu Dhabi on December 6.<\/p>\n

Imola confirmed on list of candidates<\/p>\n

The Italian confirmed Italy’s Imola circuit, his birthplace and home to Ferrari as well as Mercedes’ F1 leader Kimi Antonelli, was on the \u200clist of possible replacements.<\/p>\n

Informed sources have touted Imola, dropped from the calendar this year, as a leading candidate despite the weather at that time of year.<\/p>\n

Domenicali said the temperatures in Las Vegas during the Saturday night race in \u2060November were colder than in Europe.<\/p>\n

“There was a possibility of having \u200ctwo races in Las Vegas (to end \u200cthe season), but we don’t want to ruin a jewel that is growing,” he said, adding that there would also be added competition \u200cwith the regular NFL season.<\/p>\n

The 2027 calendar has yet to be published, but Bahrain had been expected to take back its slot as season opener from Australia in March before the conflict erupted.<\/p>\n

Domenicali said \u200cF1 planned to publish a schedule later \u2060in the year.<\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily podcast<\/a><\/p>\n

ABC Sport Daily is your daily sports conversation. We dive into the biggest story of the day and get you up to speed with everything else that’s making headlines.<\/p>\n

“Of course, in case the situation in the Middle East would not be solved, we have options, different plans,” said the chief executive. “But the trigger for that, of course, is at the end of the year. So we still have a lot of time.”<\/p>\n

“We will keep, in any case, the target of \u206024 grands prix also for next year.”<\/p>\n

Portugal and Turkey will return as new rounds on the calendar next year, and Domenicali said longer term there were positive \u200cnegotiations with possible hosts \u200cin Africa and interest from Asia and South America.<\/p>\n

“We have more requests in China, and Japan, but for the moment we want to stay with one race in China because we need to consolidate the market before thinking to have another option there,” he added.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Formula 1 will end the season in Europe if races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi cannot be held,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832175,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[944,64,63,6901,2057,817,841,806,71552,805,803,804,16260,158683,161,588,85,52474],"class_list":["post-832174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-abu-dhabi","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-conflict","tag-europe","tag-f1","tag-grand-prix","tag-motor","tag-motor-sport","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-qatar","tag-races","tag-season","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-stefano-domenicali"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832174","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=832174"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832174\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}