RacingFormula 1 will not race again until the Miami Grand Prix on May 1 to 3 after Bahrain and Saudi Arabia dropped off the 2026 calendar, leaving the season on hold after just three rounds and turning Miami into a much bigger reset point than anyone expected.
The championship has so far only visited Australia, China and Japan. That makes the gap created by the cancelled Bahrain Grand Prix on April 12 and the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix on April 19 unusually long for this stage of the year. According to the source summaries, the races were called off because of the Middle East conflict, forcing Formula 1 to rethink both its short-term schedule and some of its planning for the rest of the season.
When the paddock gets to Miami, the competitive picture may not look the same as it did in those opening three weekends. Mercedes has emerged as an early benchmark, according to the summaries, but Ferrari, Red Bull and McLaren remain in the fight. Miami now lands at the point where teams are expected to bring their first major upgrade packages of the season. The summaries describe that battle as a development war, and after such a long pause, those updates could shift the order that formed in the first part of the championship.
The break has not only been about factories building new parts. It has also opened space for Formula 1, the FIA and the teams to push through talks on regulations. According to the summaries, the first FIA-teams meeting took place on April 9 to discuss possible rule changes. More meetings are expected through April, including F1 Commission sessions and separate talks involving teams, drivers and Formula 1 CEO Stefano Domenicali, according to the same source material. Energy management sits at the center of those discussions, and the debate around “ADUO” is expected to become more concrete after the break, with possible Power Unit updates under consideration, according to the summaries.
There is still no confirmed plan to put Bahrain or Saudi Arabia back on the 2026 calendar, but the possibility has already been raised publicly. Robert Doornbos, Abu Dhabi Grand Prix ambassador, said in an interview with Ziggo Sport that Saudi Arabia could yet return later this year. “Jeddah could yet come back to the calendar this year,” Doornbos, Abu Dhabi Grand Prix ambassador, said in an interview with Ziggo Sport. He added that “they now say that they are moving Abu Dhabi by a week and that they are slotting Jeddah in between,” and said that would create a run of “Las Vegas, Qatar, Jeddah and Abu Dhabi” to end the season.
For now, though, the empty weekends remain empty. No replacement races have been added, and teams have looked for other ways to recover track time. According to the summaries, Pirelli ran a wet-tyre test at Suzuka after the Japanese Grand Prix. Ferrari also completed wet running at Fiorano, while McLaren and Mercedes took part in tyre-focused running at the Nurburgring. The summaries state that those sessions were limited to tyre work, not a chance to test performance upgrades before Miami.
So the season resumes in Florida with two separate stories running at once. One is the shape of the calendar after an April break nobody planned for. The other is the competitive order, because the first real wave of 2026 upgrades is about to hit at the same race that restarts the championship.