Bahrain practice kickstarts marathon F1 year
After the most dramatic offseason in recent Formula 1 history comes its longest ever season.
The season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix will be the first of 24 race weekends. Champion Max Verstappen — sixth in the first practice Thursday — is among several drivers raising concerns about the impact of a relentless schedule.
As practice got underway, the focus remained on Red Bull and team principal Christian Horner. He remains in charge after the team’s parent company in Austria said a grievance made against him was dismissed after an internal investigation, but the matter continued to dog Horner Thursday after alleged evidence was made public via anonymous email.
Also this offseason, seventime champion Lewis Hamilton stunned the series by announcing he is moving to Ferrari next year. The switch surprised his current team, Mercedes, and even his parents. Also, Netflix star Guenther Steiner was removed from his role leading the Haas team.
It has been a lot for drivers and F1 fans to follow even before a marathon season begins.
All three past and present champions on the grid — Hamilton, Verstappen and Fernando Alonso — agree 24 races push the limits of what F1 drivers and team members can take.
“When I started we had 16 races,” said two-time champion Alonso, who has a record 377 career race starts. “Now we are up to 24 and this is not sustainable for the future for anyone.”
“I feel that we are way over the limit of races,” said Verstappen.
Since Liberty Media took over F1 before the 2017 season, the number of races has risen from 20. The growth is driven by Liberty’s strategy of staging races in destination cities like Las Vegas, Miami, Jeddah in Saudi Arabia and, from 2026, Madrid.
Verstappen’s Red Bull teammate, Sergio Perez, voiced concern for staff on F1 teams who, he said, seemed exhausted at the final races last year.
“I remember seeing a lot of zombies in Abu Dhabi, after Vegas,” he said. “We are trying to basically put some points across that it’s not only for the drivers, to be honest. There’s a lot of mechanics, engineers and basically they travel the world weekend after weekend, a lot of hours on the planes.”