Why is the 2025 F1 season starting in Australia instead of Bahrain? All about Formula 1 calendar's reshuffle this year

The 2025 F1 season will start in Australia instead of Bahrain owing to the latter celebrating the festival of Ramadan in March. The Albert Park Circuit in Melbourne will host the season opener for the first time since 2019.

The 2025 campaign will have 24 races and six sprints from March to December. The track action will get underway with the official pre-season testing at the Sakhir International Circuit in late February, while officially commencing the year a fortnight later.

The Australian GP will be the first race of the year instead of the Bahrain GP.

Why is the 2025 F1 season starting in Melbourne instead of Sakhir?

The 2025 F1 season will begin on March 14 in Melbourne to host the season-opener at the iconic Albert Park Circuit. To avoid the conflict of dates with the festival of Ramadan, which will be from February 28 to March 29, the sport decided to shift the opening race from the Middle Eastern countries.

The sport hosted the opening two races of the 2024 season in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia but the main race was shifted to Saturdays instead of Sundays to not clash with the Ramadan festivities.

The Australian GP was picked as the alternative for the season opener, a position it has held on numerous occasions, to give a better flow to the calendar. After Melbourne, the next races will be in China and Japan before returning to Bahrain on April 11.

Has the Australian GP hosted the season opener previously?

The Australian GP had regularly hosted the season opener in the sport ever since the race shifted to Melbourne from Adelaide in 1996. With the exceptions of 2006 and 2010, the race in Melbourne was the first event of the year.

In 2006, F1 decided to avoid a conflict of arrangements with the Commonwealth Games held in Melbourne and returned a month later. In 2010, to celebrate its diamond jubilee, the sport decided to commence the occasion by racing at the longer layout at the Sakhir International Circuit known as the "Endurance Layout."

The cancelation of the race, owing to the COVID-19 outbreak, caused the sport to halt for six months. When racing resumed, F1 picked the Austrian GP as the season opener and did not return Down Under until 2022 due to COVID-19 restrictions. In the following four years, Bahrain was chosen as the season opener as it made more sense to race at the same venue, where the pre-season testing was held.

Along with the status of hosting the season opener in 2025, the Australian Grand Prix also has signed an extended contract with F1 until the end of the 2032 season.