When is the next F1 race – plus 2025 grand prix calendar

The 2024 Formula 1 season has drawn to a close after the championship’s longest campaign yet with 24 grands prix including six sprint races.

It resulted in Max Verstappen clinching his fourth consecutive world title with the Red Bull driver having fended off nearest challenger Lando Norris of McLaren. 

F1 will hold the same number of rounds in 2025, a season that commences with testing in Bahrain on 26 February and concludes in Abu Dhabi on 7 December.

So here is all you need to know about that next F1 fix. 

When is the next F1 race?

The next F1 race is on 16 March 2025, as the Australian Grand Prix kickstarts an F1 season for the first time since 2019. Pre-season testing will continue to be in Bahrain, though, as the Middle Eastern country will host a three-day test commencing on Wednesday 26 February and ending on Friday 28 February. 

That means there are just two weeks between the end of testing and the first practice session in Melbourne on Friday 14 March at Albert Park Circuit. 

What is the 2025 F1 schedule? 

Pierre Gasly, Alpine A524, with aero rakes

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

The 2025 F1 campaign begins with pre-season testing at the Bahrain International Circuit.

This will be the fifth straight year that F1 has held its pre-season test in the Middle Eastern country, despite Bahrain not being the opening round next year for the first time since the COVID-hit 2020 campaign when it was in Austria. 

That’s because Australia will return as the season opener, having traditionally hosted the first grand prix of the year since Melbourne joined the calendar in 1996.

But Albert Park Circuit has not done so since 2019, as it was absent in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic before hosting the third round in each of the following three years.

In 2025, Australia will stage the opening round of the F1 season on 14-16 March before the Chinese Grand Prix, which hosted the fifth race in 2024, the following weekend. 

These changes have been made because of Ramadan. The Islamic tradition takes place from 1-30 March next year, which ruled out the Middle East from holding the opening grands prix of the season.

So, after China there will be a two-week break before the Japanese Grand Prix with Bahrain and Saudi Arabia then hosting the season’s fourth and fifth rounds in April.

A trip to Miami follows before Imola kickstarts the European leg of the season which, bar June’s Canadian Grand Prix, finishes with Monza in September.

Other changes include those being made to the sprint calendar. In 2024, China, Miami, Austria, Austin, Brazil and Qatar all held sprint races but the Red Bull Ring is not on that calendar for 2025.

Its spot will be taken by Spa-Francorchamps, which will host its second sprint race having also held one in 2023, won by Verstappen. 

2025 F1 calendar