2012 F1 calendar revealed with record 21 races

2012 F1 season

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The 2012 F1 calendar will contain a record 21 races according to the provisional schedule published by the FIA today.

The return of the United States Grand Prix, following a five-year absence, will extend the calendar from this year’s 20 events.

Despite speculation over the future of the race the Turkish Grand Prix remains on the calendar, albeit subject to final confirmation.

The Korean Grand Prix has been moved forward six months from October to April.

Round EventTrackDate
1Bahrain Grand PrixBahrain International Circuit11th March
2Australian Grand PrixAlbert Park18th March
3Malaysian Grand PrixSepang International Circuit1st April
4Chinese Grand PrixShanghai International Circuit8th April
5Korean Grand PrixKorean International Circuit22nd April
6Turkish Grand Prix*Istanbul Park6th May
7Spanish Grand PrixCircuit de Catalunya20th May
8Monaco Grand PrixMonte-Carlo27th May
9Canadian Grand PrixCircuit Gilles Villeneuve10th June
10United States Grand PrixCircuit of the Americas17th June
11European Grand PrixValencia Street Circuit1st July
12British Grand PrixSilverstone15th July
13German Grand PrixHockenheimring29th July
14Hungarian Grand PrixHungaroring5th August
15Belgian Grand PrixSpa-Francorchamps2nd September
16Italian Grand PrixMonza9th September
17Singapore Grand PrixSingapore30th September
18Japanese Grand PrixSuzuka14th October
19Indian Grand PrixBuddh International Circuit28th October
20Abu Dhabi Grand PrixYas Island11th November
21Brazilian Grand PrixInterlagos25th November

2012 F1 calendar

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    Keith Collantine
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    115 comments on “2012 F1 calendar revealed with record 21 races”

      1. But not having Korea / China / Japan / Malaysia in the same stint seems madness. F1 is hardly becoming eco-friendly if it’s flying the whole shebang over to the Far East TWICE a year!

        1. Quite the opposite really, if they were all in one big stint, there would be far mor flights back and forth to pick up spares and upgrades etc. Also costs would sky-rocket, teams would have to hire two different teams for such a long stint away from home.

          1. I love the fact that Korea is Fifth, will make for yet another amazing race.

            1. Will it? Half the beauty of the first race was that it wasn’t actually finished!

              Tilke will have finished Tilkalising it and I’m not sure it will have the same charisma.

        2. Well there are two blocks of three Asian races: Malaysia/China/Korea and Singapore/Japan/India so it makes sense really.

        3. Also, the weather in most of europe and N. America makes it prohibative to clump all of the asian races together in one big block as you are going to have to dodge spring snow in March/April or late fall frost/freezing rain in October/November. With asia/S. hemisphere countries, that’s not nearly as big an issue during spring/fall.

      2. Precisely what my comment was going to be :)

        1. 6 sets of back-to-back races – EPIC

          1. good bye girlfriend, it was nice knowing you :-S

      3. 11th March – 25th November!
        But I saw Monza is on the second weekend of September as always, so does this mean the summer break is shorter?

    1. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Circuit of the Americas! YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!

      I will be in Austin every summer for the next 10 years!

      1. Will it be too hot to race? I think in Austin the highs be mostly in upper 90s- lower 100s in June. And the race should start around noon…

        1. Water boils at like 100 right?

          1. Celsius yes. Fahrenheit no.

            1. Common guys, infy didn’t fail, it was a joke!

          2. loooooooooooooooooooooool

          3. Epic fail.

          4. your reply made my day

          5. Yeah that’s why when you go on a beach holiday abroad and the temperature is 100F you can see the sea boiling… ;-)

        2. Nuclearblaze
          3rd June 2011, 17:03

          Knowing the American’s they will probably air condition the state so it should be fine :-)

          1. Jerry Jones is working on that one.

            1. My hate for Jerrah is like a truck.
              Berserker.

          1. LOL, but would there be enough water :-)

        3. Gnarly Racing (@)
          3rd June 2011, 18:59

          haha, who’ll be the next Nigel Mansell?…
          Mansell Passes Out – 1984 F1 Season

        4. It’s 97F or 36C right now at the nearest weather station to the circuit. Two weeks further into Summer next year it could well be hotter. I hope they’re not serious about keeping the race in that time slot. Pairing it with Brazil would make more sense.

          1. Sounds like a pretty hot affair then. Repeat of that famous 84 GP?

          2. Unusually dry in Texas this spring, but it was cloudy in May…cool (weather) video:
            http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QN9runMi9w&feature=player_profilepage

            1. the modern drivers are considerably fitter than mansell ever was. they will be fine

            2. I must say, they really do a great job of showing how they progress to the fans. Certainly hope they can keep that up right until the GP weekend, showing some of the atmosphere buidling up in the days before the race etc.

          3. It’s unusually hot in the southeast right now. The average temp in Austin in June is 91. It’s hot, but not too hot. I agree though, I would prefer it to be later. They want to tie it into Canada though and Montreal doesn’t want to change their slot…

          4. Just like Phoenix in May. Super idea!

    2. US GP in June… might be a little bit hot? A quick but non-comprehensive google check shows it would rival the hottest races of the year (although Malaysia is arguably worse with the humidity).

      Still, if the track is half as good as they are telling us, it may be worth it.

      1. Even the NASCAR race in April is at night… the F1 race will have plenty HEAT to deal with,but in 2013 they will need to change to a night race.

        1. Yeah that’d be just great, it’d be on Monday morning for us Europeans then

          1. If they were to do something like that they could well shift it to Saturday night, with practice and qualifying on Thursday and Friday respectively. That could be pretty cool actually.

            1. That would be nice. The Austing sky line would feature nicely in the background as well. Or maybe do something like Abu Dhabi.

            2. It would work if it was somewhere like California but I think in Austin night race it would just be at 2 AM or something.. at least my time, I live in Finland so if you live in UK it’d be nicer for you

            3. I’d want it to stay Sunday Local time… I dunno why… Stubbornness I think.

            4. Or start it at 6:00am local.

    3. Melbourne has been moved to an earlier date. Now all they need to do is move the race back to an earlier time.

      1. Not going to happen. Why, because god forbid Bernie and the bankers should lose one iota of sponsorship money because a single one of the now 21 annual races is held before a certain time in Europe.

    4. Also, the Korea move makes sense. If only they moved Bahrain and Abu Dhabi together… But then maybe people would realise how ridiculous it is having two races so close to each other. That applies to Valencia, too! ;)

    5. Could’ve sworn that Bernie said Austria would be back

      1. no, he just said “why not?”. If he would answer his rhetoric question himself, BE would say that it’s not coming back because there’s 21 races already in 2012, with the Sochi GP coming soon it may be 22.

        They should drop the Valencia bore-fest and put A1 ring instead, but will it happen?

        1. Austria for Valencia is about the most perfect idea i’ve heard. Give the European GP to a country that isn’t currently hosting one and put it geographically smack bang in the middle of Europe.

          Pity that all makes too much sense.

          1. It makes sence, but not dollars and cents.

      2. When the 50-100 million squid arrives in the mail, then it will be back.

    6. I would think Texas in the middle of June is getting pretty hot, isn’t it?

      And why not have a bit more time between Spain and Monaco, or is that going to be done by doing Barcelona on the 13th when they ultimately drop Turkey?

      1. Well, Texas is huge….HUGE. Just for comparison, texas is 696,000 sq km and england is 130,000 sq km….

        So the climates are different throughout the state, san antonio or west texas is more like a desert and dry and hot. Austin is sort of central,east and a little more humid with lower temps…

        It’ll be in the 90’s and hot either way, but it’s not the hottest part of Texas…

    7. And one last comment, I’m going to have Brazil FP1 and FP2 on my birthday! :D I am pretty sure that is the only time in history there has been an F1 session on my birthday! :)

      1. Singapore FP1 and FP2 on my birthday. Although, I must admit crashgate occurred on my birthday as well.

        1. Being a January child, a feel Grand Prix has never fallen on my birthday.

          I do however share my birthday with Michael Schumacher, although most of it is mine.

          1. Matt Pepprell
            3rd June 2011, 18:04

            lol!

          2. I am in december, but the way the seasons are expanding, we might be having one on our birthday before too long!

        2. Bigbadderboom
          3rd June 2011, 17:15

          Ah Todfod my B’Day is Singapore FP3 and Quali. Bonus for me!!!!!

        3. Elliot Horwood
          4th June 2011, 0:09

          i was at silverstone in 2008 for my 16th Birthday in the pouring rain watching lewis hamilton lead the MP4-23 to victory by a huge margin :)

      2. Hey nice,

        In my case, Indian GP FP1 and FP2 are about to take place on my birthday.

        Also, seeing Todfod’s comment – what’s with birthdays on fridays in 2012?

      3. Italian GP Qualifying falls on mine. In fact, Alain Prost won the italian grand prix for McLaren on the very day I was born.

      4. mine’s on the Valencia GP sunday. One deserves a good afternoon nap on his b-day right? :)

        1. German GP on mine :D. It always seems to change between Hungary and Germany every year, or sometimes just in the middle

          1. British GP FP1 + FP2 on mine

      5. My birthday usually falls between Spa and Monza. It doesn’t actually fall on a Sunday until 2021, so no races on my birthday anytime soon. Maybe next year I’ll go to Spa and Monza for my birthday and stretch it out to a week long celebration!

    8. 21 races sounds exciting in theory, but after seeing them all laid out in a provisional calendar like this I can’t help but think that 21 races is a bit much…

      1. Agreed. I think they should have stopped at 20. It’s a nice round number and it provides us with plenty of racing. The winter break is getting ever smaller for the teams nowadays, isn’t it?

        1. I even think 20 is too many. I’d like to see it back to a 16-18 race calendar personally, with some tracks rotating each year.

          1. Rotation is a bad idea for local circuits. Hard to impress sponsors and make a profit.
            I think 21 is OK but the provisional one is horrible.

      2. I guess Turkey will be dumped anyhow, so that brings us back to 20.

    9. still no race on 22nd August but Korea 5th on the calendar is interesting.

    10. Ned Flanders
      3rd June 2011, 15:42

      Now I love racing, but 21 races is silly. I thought 20 was the accepted limit… if not, when will this expansion end? 25 races? 30?? When money’s involved, Ecclestone won’t think rationally, he’ll just keep the piling the calendar up, regardless of what side effects that may cause

      1. I’m worried about how the teams are going to be able to develop cars quick enough for the next season!

        1. Bigbadderboom
          3rd June 2011, 17:19

          I’m more worried about developing cars with Regs up in the air! I don’t think Fer, Mcl, Mer, RBR or group renault lotus or just lotus but not chassis whatever they are called, will struggle but for the new boys Firce india and TR it does tighten the thumb screws somewhat. Perhaps part of Virgins unannounced decision to run a McLaren package from next year.

        2. That does not have to be as big a problem, if the rules stay stable. Like it was in the old days, when teams used their chassis for longer periods, just updated parts.

      2. He will die soon anyway so maybe we’ll get some change then eh…

      3. 52 would be the absolute limit for me, it would be crazy to have 2 races a week. ;)

    11. I think the maximum they could have would be 22 races, and they still get a 4 week winter break so whoever said the winter break is getting smaller is wrong

      1. I started watching in 2001 and that year the season ended in mid October and the 2002 season started in March. This time the season will end sometime around early-mid December , but the 2012 season will start once again in March. A 6-7 week winter break (before testing starts in February) is hardly enough for the teams to recoup.

    12. Bahrain on the 11th and Aus on the 18th?

      Is there time to move all the kit? or have i missed something here.

      1. Matt Pepprell
        3rd June 2011, 18:08

        Last year (2010) Abu Dhabi was one week after the Brazillian Grand Prix. The move is big, but similar to how it was in 2010 and everything was just fine.

        It presents an interesting challenge for the teams

    13. What happened to quote “20 races is enough”? And Bernie saying they will get rid of one GP they don’t need quote “we don’t need Australia, for example”

      1. quote “we don’t need Australia, for example”

        You clearly don’t know Bernie. The costs of the Australian Grand Prix are a major political issue in Victoria. There has been growing public support for the race to be discontinued. Bernie was just employing his standard tactics (also known as “grabbing them by the balls and squeezing”) to get them to stop bickering and start making up their minds.

        1. Haha, that is a great analogy.

        2. Yeah, I guess Turkey is the reserve for either Australia dumping it early. Or Bahrain messing up after all. Or Austin finding out they will not be on time.
          If those go ahead, then Turkey is out.

    14. Good call on Korea. It should balance out the flyaway legs a little. And it’s not like they’re going to be under pressure to surface the circuit …

      Anyway, with 21 races, that means there’s a massive 525 championship points on offer.

      1. Gnarly Racing (@)
        3rd June 2011, 19:02

        Surely Lotus can grab at least one of them?

      2. Yeah, they won’t be surfacing it this year either! I hope we get to see a dry race there, I think it could actually provide some fantastic racing.

      3. To be a pedantic ****, 525 is the maximum points that one single driver will be able to score in 2011 (provided there are 21 races) but the total number of points on offer from the entire season is actually 2121.

        There’s one for the stats guys.

    15. 21 races during one season. This is just ludicrous. This developement will se single races become more and more meaningless.

    16. I’m very happy that they’ve moved the Australian GP one week earlier than it was scheduled. This means that there is no longer a clash with the opening round of the Australian Rules season. This is a massive deal, as previously this took up the majority of F1’s media coverage in the lead-up to the weekend. I think this will definitely boost interest and crowd figures.

      However, they have already started selling tickets for the 25th March 2012, so some people who were optimistic with hotel bookings might’ve been caught out.

      1. Gnarly Racing (@)
        3rd June 2011, 19:07

        There’ll be a few minutes more daylight too…

        1. True as well, although with UK daylight savings time (usually) ending the week later, it will actually make it an hour earlier.

    17. I don’t understand what’s wrong with 21 races. You really notice the difference between that and say 17-18?

    18. 21 is too many, I wouldn’t mind if we lost the races that have no significant connection to F1 (ie drivers teams from those countries) but the way things are going we’d end up with about 3 races.

    19. I like what they’ve done with Korea. Plus it looks like no 3-week breaks between any races, apart from the summer break of 4 weeks – unless Turkey goes.

    20. I think the limit will be for another 2-3 races, and then they’ll start questioning 3 days racing weekends.

    21. MVEilenstein
      3rd June 2011, 17:17

      Austin is going to be epic.

    22. Gnarly Racing (@)
      3rd June 2011, 19:05

      Any chance of the drivers being allowed an extra engine?

    23. I really love Formula 1 and I don’t understand how so called “fans” can complain about more races – if it was possible I’d be happy with a race EVERY weekend.

      Yes it’s hard for the teams but it’s a sport that is at the top of the top when it comes to pay checks and luxury so I think it’s a challenge they should rise to.

      Ok, so some of you are saying that the development of the cars will suffer – fair enough, good point but to be honest I’m pretty sure the teams will be able to work something out.

      I’m totally against F1 being forced to be “green”. It’s just not appropriate. F1 is supposed to be (in simple terms) the best of the best and the fastest cars with the fastest drivers and in my opinion that means the costs should be the highest of the high and people should just get over it and enjoy the fantastic entertainment!!

    24. racerdude7730
      4th June 2011, 0:07

      hey guys if you wanna see what they are doing at the new Circuit of the americas take a look at this. These are about a week old but its pics of how far they have got to this point. There are tons of pics on there to look at i think you guys might like this stuff. Let me know what you think i cant wait. Also they have detailed pics of what it will look like when it is finished. These are new and are not the old ones. This shows 100% what it will look like. The best part is there is alot of run off but its not a ton like they have at new tracks….. http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.226944120665269.80843.219399881419693

    25. racerdude7730
      4th June 2011, 0:09

      One last thing i forgot here is a 5 min video of a 3d walk through of the track. It shows the cars running the track and breaks down each part of the track with video animation. I hope you enjoy!

    26. racerdude7730
      4th June 2011, 0:11

      plz ignore that video link it they changed what it was on the website and i didnt know it :/

    27. I know this is just a provisional calendar but has anyone noticed Belgium and Italy are now back to back races?

      This means this is a 4 week break between Hungary and Belgium, followed by another 3 weeks between Italy and Singapore.

    28. Money money money.

      20 is the limit.

    29. It’s like my greatest dream coming true.Not sure whether Turkey will be on the calender but I hope it will make it.

    30. I don’t see why the calendar is so spaced out at the end. I would have thought some teams would like to end the championship a bit earlier.

    31. The 2012 F1 calendar will contain a record 21 races according to the provisional schedule published by the FIA today.*

      *Subject to civil unrest.

      Glad to see Istanul Park is on there, hope it stays that way!

      Having Korea in April is a nice twist. I love early season early wake-ups!

    32. I think 21 races is a bit too much , even dedicated F1 fans have a life.

    33. What did Bernie say, ‘No more than 20 races’. Oh well, he can always dump Turkey

      1. What if Turkey pay the money which will stop Bernie’s mouth.

    34. HounslowBusGarage
      4th June 2011, 19:58

      I suddenly understand that there was another reason why Bernie wanted to move the 2010 Indian race to the end of the season. He did not want the re-scheduled Bahrain race to close the 2011 season and Bahrain to open the 2011 season four months later.
      Korea in April looks intersting; what will the temperature be then?

      1. HounslowBusGarage
        4th June 2011, 20:00

        Error. Should be “Bahrain race to close the 2010 season” not the 2011 season.
        Doh!

    35. Austin in the middle of June. I’m sure the Hospital industry lobbied hard for that date, they will make millions off their ERs treating dehydration!

    36. Paul Russ Richards
      11th December 2011, 18:35

      Very disappointed.Too many dates coincide with WTCC at the beginning of the year for watchers ,goers of both.I have found F1 a little boring over the last year,even being an ardent Brit driver follower and Alonso interested.WTCC is much more exciting,right up until the last race.I know what i am going to watch most after 60 years of following F1

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