F1 Calendar 2027: Shanghai’s odds are rising
The 2027 Formula 1 season could open on a track that has actually never hosted the World Championship opener before. According to Jon Noble on the authoritative English publication The Race, in fact, if the conflict between the USA, Israel, and Iran continues into autumn and winter, the odds of the Chinese GP hosting the inaugural GP of the next championship would be rising. The Shanghai track debuted on the F1 calendar in 2004, and until 2008 it remained positioned in the final phase of each season, also hosting the last GP of the 2005 World Championship. From 2009 onwards, the Chinese GP moved to spring and could now benefit from the difficulties in Bahrain and the works on the Melbourne circuit paddock to open the next championship.
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Liberty Media considers the “plan B”
The plan A – certainly the favorite of Liberty Media – is to start the season with the Middle Eastern doubleheader at Sakhir and Jeddah on March 14 and 21, with a week off before traveling to the Far East to compete in the triple GP in Australia, Japan, and China (April 4, 11, and 18). However, if the conflict involving all the countries bordering the Persian Gulf does not resolve, then it would be Shanghai that “takes advantage”: in Melbourne, the pit building renovation works are scheduled, which are unlikely to be completed by March and will therefore prevent Australia from taking its traditional slot at the start of the championship.
Plan B would therefore foresee starting in Shanghai with Suzuka in back-to-back, while Melbourne could complete the triple consecutive race weekend at the end of March or remain “alone” in the provisional slot of April 4. The hope would then be to continue between Bahrain and Saudi Arabia if the conflict finally comes to an end, but the need to find other and possible alternative solutions remains on the agenda should the instability situation persist into the early months of 2027. For F1, it would be the first-ever start from China but also the first time since the distant 1995 Brazilian GP that neither Albert Park nor Sakhir would host the start of the World Championship.
The situation for the end of the 2026 championship
For the rest, the international political situation, to which F1 must inevitably submit, remains – as they say in these cases, with a bit of journalistic laziness – rather fluid and therefore subject to sudden and unpredictable changes. For this reason, the main concern for now is mostly related to the end of the 2026 season, since the decision on what to do with the GPs of Qatar and Abu Dhabi will have to be made in the short term. Speaking with F1TV in Zandvoort, Stefano Domenicali clarified that the two races are regularly scheduled and that in fact there are still the last grandstand tickets formally on sale for the Yas Marina round.
The deadline to make the decision will be the end of September, beyond which Liberty Media will no longer be able to delay to avoid risking a situation similar to the one already experienced last April, when the World Championship organizers found themselves with no margin of time to schedule an alternative GP to the Middle Eastern ones canceled due to the war. If the conflict does not resolve or the current stalemate phase persists, the candidacy of Imola to close the 2026 F1 season calendar remains clear, which according to The Race would come after the Las Vegas round to close a 22-race championship.
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