Bahrain will host the first Grand Prix of the 2024 season on Saturday, March 2nd

The 2024 F1 season will start on March 2nd, in the state of Bahrain. Since 2021, the Gulf country has hosted all 20 F1 drivers to kick off a long season. Initially, the race weekends took place from Friday to Sunday but in three months, the opening race will be held on a Saturday.

The reason for this advancement is the start date of Ramadan. If the Muslim religious festival does not begin until March 10th, the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix will still take place during this period. The Saudi organizers did not want a F1 Grand Prix to take place on Sunday, March 10th, in order to respect the start of Ramadan. The race weekend in Jeddah will take place from Thursday, March 7th, to Saturday, March 9th. The Bahrain Grand Prix has also been moved forward by one day to allow drivers and teams to have a one-week break between these two races in the Middle East.

A record number of races for Formula 1

In 2024, 24 races will be on the Formula 1 calendar. The 22 circuits that hosted the cars will be present, with the addition of China and Imola. Zhou Guanyu will be able to compete in his very first F1 Grand Prix at home. China was absent since 2020 due to the global pandemic. The Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix was canceled this year due to the severe floods that hit the Italian region last May.

For the upcoming season, the Japanese Grand Prix will take place on April 7th, with Suzuka swapping its date with Baku, originally scheduled for September 15th. The F1 aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030, and with the typhoon season in Japan typically occurring from late September to late October, these are two reasons to move the Suzuka race to this date.

Las Vegas will be the penultimate round of the season, just after Brazil and before Qatar and Abu Dhabi. These changes are being made in order to minimize travel around the world and therefore reduce greenhouse gas emissions.