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Formula 1 has announced its race start times for 2021, with all grands prix scheduled to get under way on the hour rather than at 10 past.
This reverses a change made in 2018, when start times were shifted back to 10 past the hour. This was to allow broadcasters going on air on the hour to benefit from 10 minutes of build up before the start of the formation lap.
There had been suggestions that start times in Europe and Brazil would be made a further 60 minutes earlier, reversing a change also made in 2018. But this is not the case, with the majority of European races starting at 1500 local time.
This change was originally made on the basis of research indicating that a later-afternoon slot would allow the races to reach a wider TV audience, with a particular emphasis on the benefit during the summer.
This means the majority of races on the 2021 calendar start 10 minutes earlier than they were originally scheduled for last season, although there are several exceptions.
The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola, which is scheduled for April 18, will start at 1500 rather than the 1310 slot it had last year. The 2020 timing was because the 2020 race took place on November 1 and fading light would have prevented such a late start time.
Japan also starts earlier than its previous slot, at 1400 rather than 1510.
The Russian and Australian Grands Prix have been pushed back by 50 minutes, with Sochi starting at 1500 local time rather than 1410 last year and Melbourne now a 1700 local time start.
The new Saudi Arabia Grand Prix on December 5, which will run under floodlights, has been given a start time of 1900 local time.
The schedule also reflects the switch to one-hour practice sessions on Friday, with FP1 starting at 1130 and FP2 starting at 1500 on typical race weekends.
Saturday practice kicks off at 1200 in Europe with qualifying at 1500 as before.
2021 F1 Grand Prix start times
(all race local time)
March 28 Bahrain – 18:00
April 18 Imola – 15:00
May 2 tba
May 9 Spain – 15:00
May 23 Monaco – 15:00
June 6 Azerbaijan – 16:00
June 13 Canada – 14:00
June 27 France – 15:00
July 4 Austria – 15:00
July 18 Britain – 15:00
August 1 Hungary – 15:00
August 29 Belgium – 15:00
September 5 Netherlands – 15:00
September 12 Italy – 15:00
September 26 Russia – 15:00
October 3 Singapore – 20:00
October 10 Japan – 14:00
October 24 USA – 14:00
October 31 Mexico – 13:00
November 7 Brazil – 14:00
November 21 Australia – 17:00
December 5 Saudi Arabia – 19:00
December 12 Abu Dhabi – 17:00
