Formula 1 and the FIA have confirmed the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix will not return in the 2026 season, with a race in Madrid taking Imola’s place in the 24-round calendar.
F1 will run a 24-round calendar for the third successive year next season, with the Australian Grand Prix again kicking the campaign off in March. The 2026 F1 calendar will also begin one week earlier than in 2025, with the pinnacle of motorsport hitting Melbourne on March 6-8.
Other changes to the schedule also include the Canadian Grand Prix moving forward to May 22-24 and the Monaco Grand Prix moving to June 5-7. But Imola is falling off F1’s calendar in place of the Spanish Grand Prix, as it moves from Barcelona to Madrid, on September 11-13.
The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya will still get an F1 race in 2026, but the Madring is due to take up the naming of the Spanish GP. The Grand Prix in Madrid is also still subject to the FIA homologating the Madring street track. But Imola will not return, as its contract has expired.
Italy wants Imola back on the F1 calendar after its 2026 axe, but £34m hosting fee is an issue
The local authorities and the Italian government both remain keen on Imola returning to the F1 calendar in the future, potentially in 2027, after failing to agree on a new contract for the Emilia Romagna GP to return in 2026. But Imola may have staged its final F1 race for a while.
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Reports by Auto Action before F1 confirmed the 2026 calendar stated that the promoters of the Emilia Romagna GP knew that Imola would not hold a round next season. But the Italian government will ‘keep on fighting’ to get Imola back on the F1 calendar as soon as possible.
Imola held a record-breaking race as Max Verstappen overtook Oscar Piastri to win the 2025 Emilia Romagna GP with 242,000 fans flocking to Ferrari’s backyard over the three days. The traffic management in the local area was also vastly improved compared to F1’s prior visits.
But even though Imola would be open to returning to the F1 calendar in rotation with a race in Barcelona, the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa or a race in France or Germany, the price to stage an F1 round is about to increase to over €40m (£34m), which Imola ‘would struggle to pay’.
Imola penned an increase in its net profit from ticket sales of €18m (£15m) in 2025. But the track estimates that the figure would still be 40% less than the ‘scary’ costs of having a race again in the future. So, the chances of Imola returning to the F1 calendar in 2027 are small.
Could Imola return to the F1 calendar as the San Marino Grand Prix?
F1 initially only returned to Imola during the 2020 season as it needed additional rounds in the Covid-disrupted term. Formula 1 had previously raced at the track in Ferrari’s backyard in 1980 as the Italian Grand Prix and then from 1981 to 2006 as the San Marino Grand Prix.
Now, with Imola’s contract to stage the Emilia Romagna GP (as it was named after the local area in which the circuit is actually situated), the ongoing efforts for the circuit to return to the F1 calendar in the future could also open a door for the San Marino GP name to return.
Prior reports floated around amid the local authority’s ongoing bid to see Imola stay on the F1 calendar also indicated that renaming Imola’s race from the Emilia Romagna GP back to the San Marino GP was a potential possibility to help convince Formula 1 to retain the race.
But it now remains to be seen if there would be enough of a financial incentive for a change in the race’s name for the Emilia Romagna region to actually hand over the naming rights to San Marino, which is 100km (62 miles) away from the circuit located in Ferrari’s backyard.
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