The F1 2026 season will begin with the Australian Grand Prix, PlanetF1.com can exclusively reveal.

Kicking off the 2026 season, Albert Park will host the Round 1 on March 6-8, the first race under sweeping new regulations.

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It will be the second successive year in which Melbourne has played host to the first event of the season after opening the F1 2025 campaign.

The Australian Grand Prix was once the traditional starting point for the world championship, though Bahrain has become the preferred option in recent years.

Logistical simplicity, together with a strong hosting fee from organisers in Bahrain, saw the coveted spot prised away from Melbourne.

Albert Park first appeared on the F1 calendar in 1996, and hosted the opening round on all but two occasions until the 11th-hour cancellation of the 2020 event.

Though Bahrain is now in pole position to open the championship most years, the timing of Ramadan will, at times, prompt a change to the schedule.

Among the terms of the deal Australian GP organisers inked in mid-2022 was a guarantee to host the opening round of the year on five occasions.

“The agreement involves an extension ‘til 2035, [and] a minimum of five first races over the 13-year period between now and 2035, including the opening race of the season in 2024 and 2025,” said Martin Pakula, then Victorian minister for tourism, sport, and major events at the time.

As it transpired, Bahrain hosted the opening round in 2024, though a further two-year extension on the AGP contract was subsequently agreed in December 2022.

That locks the Albert Park event into the calendar until at least 2037, while affording Formula One Management a useful alternative season-opener when Ramadan precludes it taking place in Bahrain.

It was for that reason that F1 2025 kicked off in Australia, and will again be the case for F1 2026 with the Islamic holy month running from February 17 until March 19.

This year, F1 visited Albert Park on March 14-16, with next year’s event scheduled for a week earlier. Locally, that coincides with the Labour Day long weekend in Victoria.

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A number of other dates are already known.

As part of its most recent contract renewal, the Monaco Grand Prix is set to move from its traditional end-of-May date to the first full weekend of June. That would place it on the June 5-7 weekend next year.

Similarly, an agreement with the promoter in Canada stated the Montreal event will move into “the third or fourth weekend of May each year.”

It’s therefore logical that would see it fall across the May 22-23 weekend next year, potentially a week after the F1 circus is in Miami.

That would create a sizeable gap among the opening five races, with an Asian swing again expected to start the year, as it did in F1 2025, with the Chinese and Japanese Grands Prix likely to follow Australia before F1 returns to the Middle East with the Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix.

The mid-year shutdown, which traditionally takes place during August, would presumably see the Hungarian Grand Prix on August 2, with Zandvoort hosting its final Dutch Grand Prix (for now) on August 30.

One wildcard is where the Madrid Grand Prix will be placed.

A direct replacement for the now-defunct Emilia Romagna event, the Imola race has preceded Monaco by a week in recent years.

That could see a Spanish event (Madrid or the Spanish Grand Prix) on May 31, which would logically push Canada and Miami both a week earlier.

However, two events in the same country in quick succession seems unlikely and it could be that the all-new Madring event brings with it something of a mid-season shakeup.

Spain last hosted two events when Valencia was part of the calendar from 2008 until 2012.

Initially, Valencia was scheduled for the penultimate week of August, before moving into late June for its final three runnings, where it followed the Canadian Grand Prix, while Barcelona hosted F1 in May.

It’s possible the expected final running of the Spanish GP at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya could be as early as May 3, though how that fits with F1’s efforts to create logistical efficiency is unclear.

Whatever the case, the starting point for F1 2026 is known; Albert Park will open the year on March 8 in what will be a significant event for the world championship.

The F1 2026 season is set to see a revolution in the sport with sweeping new chassis, power unit, and financial regulations.

New rules will see moveable aerodynamics introduced alongside an increased reliance on hybrid power, with as much as half of the power unit output coming from electrical energy.

A more extensive testing program is planned as teams come to grips with arguably the most sweeping rule change in F1 history.

That is reportedly set to begin in Barcelona from January 26-30 with a closed-door test where teams will be able to run any three of the available five days.

From there, they’ll head to Bahrain for two further outings, the first running from February 12-14, and the second from February 18-20.

Bahrain has become the preferred test venue in recent years thanks largely to its warm, stable climate.

However, there remain question marks over that testing program given the timing of Ramadan.

It is expected the full calendar will be officially confirmed following a meeting of the FIA World Motor Sport Council in Macau next month as part of the governing body’s annual conference.

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