Formula 1 recently revealed the schedule for the upcoming 2024 F1 season. With 24 races, it is expected to be the season with the most number of Grand Prix weekends in the sport’s history. However, there is an interesting change that will see the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian GP races be held on Saturday for a specific reason.
After years of complaints regarding how the logistics have become an issue in the sport due to widespread traveling, the F1 along with the FIA took an important decision to make changes to the calendar. A regionalized calendar format has been introduced. This will help ease the burden on the logistics team.
However, the biggest change is going to be visible on the first two race weekends of the season. The opener in Bahrain and the subsequent race in Jeddah, will take place on Saturday, instead of Sunday. The race in Las Vegas will also take place on Saturday. However, for Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the decision is taken due to the impact of Ramadan.
Ramadan shifts Bahrain and Saudi Arabian GP Sunday to Saturday
Traditionally, F1 has always been hosting races on Sundays. However, due to the Islamic tradition of Ramadan colliding with the dates of the first two Grand Prix in 2024, it was decided to prepone the race by a day.
As per reports, Ramadan in 2024 starts on March 10, which coincidentally would have collided with the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix if the race would have been on Sunday.
24 races in 2024 with big steps forward in regionalisation 🌏
Introducing next year’s Formula 1 calendar 🗓️#F1 pic.twitter.com/JTSWJL29yH
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 5, 2023
However, with the changes made, F1 has decided to respect the religion of the majority of the followers from these two countries. The races in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia are set to take place on March 2, and 9 respectively.
Other than this particular change, there is another notable alteration to the calendar we have been seeing for a long time.
Japanese Grand Prix swapped with Azerbaijan
Earlier, there were logistical complains about how going to Suzuka gets increasingly tough for the crews and transporters when they have to move from Italy, all the way to Singapore, followed by Japan. This is why F1 made the decision of swapping the Japanese GP’s slot with the Azerbaijan GP next year onwards. It should make travelling a lot easier for the teams
Additionally, F1 hasn’t clubbed all three American races together, despite fans calling for them to do so. There could be several reasons for this, even though it goes against their pledge to reduce carbon emission. It is also believed that the NFL season was kept in mind while distributing the races in the United States.
There aren’t any new races in the calendar, but certain shakeups to the existing format, will make the season very exciting, especially with the Japanese GP in Suzuka taking place so early on.
