2027: F1 sends Monaco into sprint format and reshuffles its calendar

Ten sprints for a championship chasing more drama

The number of races stays flat compared with 2026, with twenty-four Grands Prix on the schedule. What changes is the format: sprint weekends jump from six to ten, confirming F1's appetite for packing more highlights into a single race weekend. Bahrain, Australia, Japan, Canada, Great Britain, Italy, Brazil, Qatar and Abu Dhabi round out the list alongside Monaco. Stefano Domenicali summed up the intent, saying the calendar is meant to deliver "intensity, drama and wheel-to-wheel action" at some of the sport's most iconic venues.

Monaco, the calendar's most debated gamble

This is the line that grabbed the headlines. From June 4 to 6, 2027, the Principality will stage its first-ever sprint race, on a track where overtaking has been considered next to impossible for decades. The call immediately sparked debate across social media. F1's case boils down to one point: an extra qualifying session, on a circuit where the grid — not the race — usually decides the outcome. Whether that argument wins over a fanbase already resigned to a rather dull Sunday afternoon at Monaco remains to be seen.

Portugal and Turkey return, Barcelona and Zandvoort drop off

The 2027 calendar also reshuffles the map. Portimão returns to the schedule in mid-June, as does Istanbul in early October — two tracks drivers have long praised for their technical demands. In exchange, F1 parts ways with Barcelona and the Dutch Grand Prix, both absent from next year's list. The season is built around three triple-headers: Australia-Japan-China in April, Azerbaijan-Turkey-Singapore straddling September and October, and the United States-Mexico-Brazil swing late in the year.

A schedule built under tight constraints

The season opens with winter testing in Bahrain from February 24 to 27, ahead of the championship's launch on the same track on March 14. It wraps up on December 12 in Abu Dhabi. In between, F1 had to navigate a crowded global motorsport calendar: the Portugal date was notably set to avoid clashing with the 24 Hours of Le Mans, while a three-week gap was left between Miami and Montreal to make room for the Indy 500.

It will take until June 2027 to find out whether that extra qualifying session is enough to turn Monaco's sprint experiment into a genuine success, or whether it simply becomes another chapter in the endless debate over this legendary race's future. Either way, F1 has already pulled off one thing: getting everyone talking about a race that hasn't turned a single lap yet.