Formula 1 has signed off on a packed 2027 calendar, confirming 24 grands prix and a record 10 Sprint races in a season that stretches from March to mid-December – while the sport still wrestles with uncertainty in the Gulf.
The campaign is scheduled to open in Bahrain on March 14 and close in Abu Dhabi on December 12, maintaining the now familiar Middle Eastern bookends. In between, the sport turns the clock back: Portugal and Turkey are both restored to the schedule, with the Portuguese Grand Prix set for June 20 and the Turkish Grand Prix pencilled in for October 3.
Their return comes at a cost. Barcelona-Catalunya and Zandvoort both drop off the 2027 roster, with Barcelona entering a new bi-annual rotation with Belgium from next year. One of Europe’s staple venues now becomes an every-other-year stop, a clear sign of how tight the calendar has become as F1 chases global reach and commercial muscle.
Sprints go mainstream – Monaco and Abu Dhabi join the party
The biggest structural shift comes with the Sprint format. F1 will run 10 Sprints in 2027, the most in its history, and for the first time the sport’s crown-jewel weekend in Monaco will stage a second race.
Across the first weekend of June, the streets of Monte Carlo will not just decide grid positions and Sunday glory; they will also host a Sprint race, a radical break from the traditional, finely balanced Monaco schedule. It is a bold move into the most heritage-heavy territory F1 has.
Abu Dhabi, too, changes character. The Yas Marina season finale will feature a Sprint for the first time, meaning the world championship could now twist twice on the final weekend. Six of the 10 Sprints will be held in the first 12 races, with four more in the second half of the year, turning the early phase of the campaign into a relentless points grab before the run-in.
War clouds over the Gulf
Behind the confident calendar reveal sits a major caveat. The ongoing Iran War continues to cast doubt over F1’s presence in the region.
The 2026 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix has already been postponed, while the 2026 Bahrain Grand Prix was shifted to Malaysia. That disruption now hangs over the fresh 2027 plans, with no absolute guarantee that Bahrain and Saudi Arabia will be able to host early-season races as pencilled in.
The uncertainty does not stop there. F1 has yet to confirm whether the 2026 Qatar and Abu Dhabi Grands Prix will go ahead in November and December of this year. The signs are bleak. It is increasingly likely both will be dropped, with Imola understood to be in line to step in as the season finale on December 6 instead.
That potential reshuffle would hand the historic Italian circuit a high-profile rescue role, closing a season originally intended to end under the Abu Dhabi floodlights.
Clock ticking on key decisions
F1 CEO and president Stefano Domenicali has already set out the sport’s internal deadlines. He indicated that the middle of September is the point by which the championship needs a firm decision on the 2026 Qatar and Abu Dhabi rounds, largely because of the freight and logistics demands that underpin a modern F1 season.
On 2027, the sport has given itself more breathing space. Domenicali has made clear that a formal call on whether Bahrain and Saudi Arabia can safely and practically host early-season races in 2027 does not need to be taken until the end of the 2026 calendar year.
For now, the 2027 schedule stands: 24 races, 10 Sprints, old favourites returning, modern staples rotating out. The paper plan is aggressive, ambitious, and unmistakably shaped by commercial and geopolitical realities.
Whether the cars actually line up in Bahrain next March, or somewhere very different, will tell F1 just how much control it really has over its own future.
