The 2025 Formula 1 Calendar Is A Brutal 24-Race International Slog

Image: McLaren

Formula 1 has been talking about moving to a “regionalized” season calendar for a few years now, hoping to improve logistics and reduce the carbon emissions involved with shipping a racing series around the globe. Unfortunately, the 2025 race calendar doesn’t seem any better organized than it ever has, and makes for a grueling international trek for racers and teams alike. The month of May will see four races, and there will be three trans-Atlantic trips to North America, two of them for a single weekend. The series remains committed to 24 races, which is simply too damn many.

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Graphic: Formula One

The season opens once again with Australia, as it should. There’s a decent regional start to the season as China and Japan follow on. Things start to fall apart after a trip to the Middle East for Bahrain and Saudi Arabia with a one-off trip halfway around the globe to Miami. After a quick back-to-back trio in Europe, the whole circus jumps back across the pond for a one-weekend run in Canada. That trip to Singapore before jetting off to Austin, Texas is a pretty egregious one, as well.

F1 also seems to not have learned from its 2023 lessons, and has again put the Las Vegas race at the end of November. It gets cold in the desert, dorks.

With 24 races on the calendar, the teams get a short respite of just two months of off-season to finish development of the 2026 cars. There’s no reason the F1 calendar needs to stretch from mid-March to December. There used to be a mid-season break of a few weeks, too, but that is now gone in pursuit of ever more race victories for Max Verstappen.

There are only 52 weekends in a year. Do we really need to be racing F1 on almost half of them?