Why the first two F1 Grands Prix are on a Saturday instead of a Sunday

Highlights

• Both the Bahrain Grand Prix and the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix will be taking place on Saturdays, rather than the traditional race day of Sunday.
• One of them has been moved due to the start of Ramadan, while the other has had to move to ensure there’s enough time between the two races.
• The 2024 Formula 1 season kickstarts in Bahrain this weekend.

The opening two races of the 2024 Formula 1 World Championship will take place on Saturdays rather than the traditional Sundays due to a scheduling change. The Bahrain Grand Prix and the Saudi Arabian GP will occur on the Saturdays of the 2nd and 9th of March respectively.

The reason for the change in the regular schedule is due to the start of the holy Islamic month of Ramadan on the 10th of March, where the feature race of Formula 1 would have taken place. However, they have taken the decision to move it forward a day. As for the Bahrain GP, that then also had to be moved forward due to a rule by the Federation Internationale de l’Automobilisme (FIA) that there must be at least seven full days between Grands Prix.

The reason for this rule is to allow staff members the time to recover and have the appropriate amount of time in order to properly prepare equipment and track conditions for the following race.

Grands Prix have happened on Saturday before

The change is not as uncommon as it was in recent years due to the newly-added Las Vegas GP, also having its race happen on a Saturday last year, albeit for different reasons. This case is more to make the race more time-friendly for fans on a global scale to watch, and it will remain this way for this year’s GP.

Races on Saturday were a more regular occurrence in the first 30 to 40 years of the sport, with even the very first race (Silverstone GP in 1950) taking place on the sixth day of the week. The original Las Vegas Grand Prix, aka the Caesar Palace Grand Prix, also had both of its race days on Saturdays in 1981 and 1982. Prior to last year, the last race to happen on a Saturday was the 1985 South African GP.

The 2024 Formula 1 season preview

The Bahrain International Circuit will set the stage for Red Bull driver Max Verstappen to kick off his campaign on the quest for a fourth consecutive Drivers’ Championship. Verstappen remains the favourite as he and his team continued their ominous pace of 2023 straight into last week’s testing, with strong lap times and a good feeling around the 2024 package. The Dutchman won the 2023 edition of the opening round with ease, ahead of Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez and Aston Martin‘s Fernando Alonso. The trio shared the podium again at the 2023 Saudi Arabia GP, though, it was Perez who finished ahead of Verstappen and Alonso that time.

Seven-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, starts his final season with Mercedes hoping to improve on the pair of fifth-place finishes at the two tracks last year.

He will, however, be encouraged at seeing an upswing in the performance of his 2025 team Ferrari, after the Scuderia topped the second and third days of testing. His current teammate George Russell was just short of the top spot on the final day, as Mercedes prepare for a transition to a new era without the mercurial Hamilton.

McLaren ace Lando Norris is hoping to continue his surge of form from the second half of 2023 and not relive his disappointing races at Bahrain and Jeddah. Signs point to a better start than 2023 for the Brackley-based team, despite a few technical issues dogging their sessions.