Bahrain GP return hit by fresh 2026 calendar doubt

Formula 1’s plan to restore the Bahrain Grand Prix to the 2026 calendar on 4 October has been thrown back into doubt by a renewed escalation between the United States and Iran, leaving the schedule unresolved again and raising wider concern over the final rounds of the season.

Bahrain had been under active discussion as the championship’s best chance of recovering one of the two races lost earlier this year. Bahrain’s minister of sustainable development Noor bint Ali Alkhulaif told Reuters that talks were continuing about bringing cancelled events back, saying: “There is the talks about maybe plugging in some of the races that were cancelled back into the calendar.” She added that there was still “no confirmation” but that a return remained “potentially” possible.

The Bahrain and Saudi Arabian Grands Prix were removed after hostilities broke out between the US and Iran in February, leaving F1 with 22 rounds instead of the 24 originally planned. Bahrain’s most realistic slot was between Azerbaijan on 26 September and Singapore on 10 October, but that solution always carried obvious strain.

Formula 1 is due to finish in the first week of December, and there are few spare weekends available without cutting into the teams’ protected summer break or creating long runs of consecutive races. A Bahrain return on 4 October would produce a triple-header with Azerbaijan and Singapore, adding logistical difficulty and cost at a point in the year when the calendar is already tightly packed.

That scheduling challenge has now been overtaken by events in the region. After a memorandum of understanding last month had briefly raised hopes of a more stable situation, the US and Iran have exchanged strikes again in recent days. Shipping through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, which had resumed after the earlier pause in hostilities, has also declined again this week.

Teams are publicly leaving the decision to Formula 1 and the FIA. McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown said: “In the end, Stefano Domenicali and the FIA will sort out the calendar. We will race where they tell us we are going to race and we will be happy to do that.”

The uncertainty no longer stops with Bahrain. If the regional situation worsens further, the season-ending races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi could also be affected, a significant threat to the shape of the 2026 championship run-in. Domenicali has already said Formula 1 has a “different option” if those final two rounds cannot go ahead.