Unlike all the other races held this season, the Azerbaijan Grand Prix will not take place on a Sunday: the entire Formula 1 weekend in Baku has indeed been moved forward by one day at the request of the Azerbaijani government and the promoter.
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After a weekend without racing, Formula 1 will head to the Baku street circuit.
The main peculiarity of this round will be its schedule: the Grand Prix will be held on Saturday, September 26 instead of Sunday.
Originally scheduled for Sunday, September 27, the race was moved forward to avoid a clash with Remembrance Day in Azerbaijan, celebrated on that date.
Not a first
This is not the first time a Formula 1 Grand Prix has been held on a Saturday to accommodate special circumstances. In 2024, the Bahrain and Saudi Arabia Grands Prix were also held on Saturdays due to the Ramadan calendar.
Spectators will therefore need to keep in mind that all weekend activities will take place one day earlier than usual.
The first two free practice sessions will thus take place on Thursday, September 24. The third free practice session and qualifying will be held on Friday, September 25, before the Grand Prix scheduled for Saturday, September 26 at 3 p.m. local time, which is 1 p.m. in France.
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An unusual program also in F2
Formula 2 will also take advantage of this special weekend to adopt an exceptional format. The discipline, the only support series present in Baku, will notably organize a second main race.
Bruno Michel, head of Formula 2, explained the reasons for this decision: “Since Formula 2 is the only support competition for the Azerbaijan Formula 1 Grand Prix, we decided, with the promoters, to organize an XXL F2 weekend, with a free practice session, two qualifying sessions, a Sprint race, and two main races.”
“This is the only weekend where the schedule allows us to add these sessions, which will further increase the spectacle for the audience present on site and all our fans,” he said. The Baku street circuit always offers us incredible races, so we are very happy to make this 12th round of our season particularly unique.”
A compromised end of the season
“We will then return to our usual weekend format for the last two rounds of the season, which will take place in Doha and Yas Marina,” Bruno Michel added.
However, the end of the season remains surrounded by uncertainties. According to previously reported information, Formula 1 teams have already been informed that the championship finale should ultimately take place at the Imola circuit in early December.
What now seems like an open secret therefore means that the war in Iran is preventing the organization of major international sporting events, with the WEC and WRC championship finals already canceled while the next Dakar, scheduled for January in Saudi Arabia, is also expected to be scrapped, possibly replaced by a similar event in Morocco, but time is running out…
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